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CUSTOMS  AND  FASHIONS 

IN 

OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 


Customs  and  Fashions 


IN 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 


BY 

ALICE  MORSE  EARLE 


Let  us  thank  God  for  having  given  us  such  ancestors ;  and 
let  each  successive  generation  thank  him  not  less  fervently, 
for  being  one  step  further  from  them  in  the  march  of  ages." 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1893 


BEESE 


Copyright,  1893,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PBINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


%^ 


ffio  Ilje  memorB  of  me  Jotljer 


303473 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    Child  Life, 1 

II.    Courtship  and  Marriage  Customs,     ...      36 

III.  Domestic  Service,  .       .        .        .        .       .        .82 

IV.  Home  Interiors, 107 

v.* Table  Plenishings,         .        ,        .        .        .        .     132 

ii^VL'*  Supplies  of  the  Larder, 146 

Vll.pf  Old  Colonial  Drinks  and  Drinkers,         .        .  163 

VIII.    Travel,  Tavern,  and  Turnpike,          .        .        .  184 

IX.    Holidays  and  Festivals, 214 

X.y  Sports  and  Diversions, 234 

XI.    Books  and  Book-Makers, 257 

"XII.*  Artifices  of  Handsomeness,         ....  289 

XIII.  *  Raiment  and  Vesture, 314 

xrv.    Doctors  and  Patients, 331 

XV.  K  Funeral  and  Burial  Customs,     .        .       .       .364 


CUSTOMS    AND    FASHIONS 

IN 

OLD    NEW   ENGLAND 
I 

CHILD  LIFE 

Fbom  the  hour  when  the  Puritan  baby  opened 
his  eyes  in  bleak  New  England  he  had  a  Spartan 
straggle  for  life.  In  summer-time  he  fared  compara- 
tively well,  but  in  winter  the  ill-heated  houses  of  the 
colonists  gave  to  him  a  most  chilling  and  benumbing 
welcome.  Within  the  great  open  fireplace,  when 
fairly  scorched  in  the  face  by  the  glowing  flames 
of  the  roaring  wood  fire,  he  might  be  bathed  and 
dressed,  and  he  might  be  cuddled  and  nursed  in 
warmth  and  comfort ;  but  all  his  baby  hours  could 
not  be  spent  in  the  ingleside,  and  were  he  carried 
four  feet  away  from  the  chimney  on  a  raw  winter's 
day  he  found  in  his  new  home  a  temperature  that 
would  make  a  modern  infant  scream  with  indignant 
discomfort  or  lie  stupefied  with  cold. 

Nor  was  he  permitted  even  in  the  first  dismal  days 
of  his  life  to  stay  peacefully  within-doors.  On  the 
Sunday  following  his  birth  he  was  carried  to  the 
meeting-house  to  be  baptized.  When  we  consider 
the  chill  and  gloom    of    those    unheated,   freezing 


ii  OLD   NEW    ENGLAND 

churches,  growing  colder  and  damper  and  deadlier 
with  every  wintry  blast  —  we  wonder  that  grown 
persons  even  could  bear  the  exposure.  Still  more  do 
we  marvel  that  tender  babes  ever  lived  through  their 
cruel  winter  christenings  when  it  is  recorded  that  the 
ice  had  to  be  broken  in  the  christening  bowl.  In 
villages  and  towns  where  the  houses  were  all  clus- 
tered around  the  meeting-house  the  baby  Puritans 
did  not  have  to  be  carried  far  to  be  baptized ;  but  in 
country  parishes,  where  the  dwelling-houses  were 
widely  scattered,  it  might  be  truthfully  recorded  of 
many  a  chrisom-child :  "  Died  of  being  baptized." 
One  cruel  parson  believed  in  and  practised  infant 
immersion,  fairly  a  Puritan  torture,  until  his  own 
child  nearly  lost  its  life  thereby. 

Dressed  in  fine  linen  and  wrapped  in  a  hand- woven 
christening  blanket — a  "  bearing-cloth  " — the  unfor- 
tunate young  Puritan  was  carried  to  church  in  the 
arms  of  the  midwife,  who  was  a  person  of  vast  im- 
portance and  dignity  as  well  as  of  service  in  early 
colonial  days,  when  families  of  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
children  were  quite  the  common  quota.  At  the  altar 
the  baby  was  placed  in  his  proud  father's  arms,  and 
received  his  first  cold  and  disheartening  reception 
into  the  Puritan  Church.  In  the  pages  of  Judge 
Samuel  Sewall's  diary,  to  which  alone  we  can  turn 
for  any  definite  or  extended  contemporary  picture 
of  colonial  life  in  Puritan  New  England,  as  for 
knowledge  of  England  of  that  date  we  turn  to  the 
diaries  of  Evelyn  and  Pepys,  we  find  abundant  proof 
that  inclemency  of   weather  was  little  heeded  when 


CHILD   LIFE  6 

religious  customs  and  duties  were  in  question.     On 
January  22d,  1694,  Judge  Sewall  thus  records : 

"  A  veiy  extraordinary  Storm  by  reason  of  the  falling 
and  driving  of  the  Snow.  Few  women  could  get  to  Meet- 
ing. A  child  named  Alexander  was  baptized  in  the  after- 
noon." 

He  does  not  record  Alexander's  death  in  sequence. 
He  writes  thus  of  the  baptism  of  a  four  days'  old 
child  of  his  own  on  February  6th,  1656 : 

"Between  3  &  4  p.m.  Mr.  Willard  baptizeth  my  Son 
whom  I  named  Stephen.  Day  was  louring  after  the 
storm  but  not  freezing.  Child  shrank  at  the  water  but 
Cry'd  not.  His  brother  Sam  shew'd  the  Midwife  who 
carried  him  the  way  to  the  Pew.     I  held  him  up." 

And  still  agaii!  on  April  8th,  1677,  of  another  of  his 
children  when  but  six  days  old : 

"  Sabbath  day,  rainy  and  stormy  in  the  morning  but  in 
the  afternoon  fair  and  sunshine  though  with  a  Blustering 
Wind.  So  Eliz.  Weeden  the  Midwife  brought  the  Infant 
to  the  Third  Church  when  Sermon  was  about  half  done 
in  the  Afternoon."        ^ 

Poor  little  Stephen  and  Hull  and  Joseph,  shrink- 
ing away  from  the  icy  water,  but  too  benumbed  to 
cry !  Small  wonder  that  they  quickly  yielded  up  their 
souls  after  the  short  struggle  for  life  so  gloomily 
and  so  coldly  begun.  Of  Judge  SewalFs  fourteen 
children  but  three  survived  him,  a  majority  dying  in 


4  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

infancy ;  and  of  fifteen  children  of  his  friend  Cotton 
Mather  but  two  survived  their  father. 

\J  This  religious  ordeal  was  but  the  initial  step  in 
the  rigid  system  of  selection  enforced  by  every  de- 
tail of  the  manner  of  life  in   early  New  England. 

^  The  mortality  among  infants  was  appallingly  large ; 
and  the  natural  result — the  survival  of  the  fittest — 
may  account  for  the  present  tough  endurance  of  the 
New  England  people. 

Nor  was  the  christening  day  the  only  Lord's  Day 
when  the  baby  graced  the  meeting-house.  Puritan 
mothers  were  all  church  lovers  and  strict  church- 
goers, and  all  the  members  of  the  household  were 
equally  church-attending ;  and  if  the  mother  went  to 
meeting  the  baby  had  to  go  also.  I  have  heard  of  a 
little  wooden  cage  or  frame  in  the  meeting-house  to 
hold  Puritan  babies  who  were  too  young,  or  feeble, 
or  sleepy  to  sit  upright. 

^  Of  the  dress  of  these  Puritan  infants  we  know  but 
little.  Linen  formed  the  chilling  substructure  of 
their  attire — little,  thin,  linen,  short-sleeved,  low- 
necked  shirts.  Some  of  them  have  been  preserved, 
and  with  their  tiny  rows  of  hemstitching  and  draAvn 
work  and  the  narrow  edges  of  thread-lace  are  pretty 
and  dainty  even  at  the  present  day.  At  the  rooms 
of  the  Essex  Institute  in  Salem  may  be  seen  the 
shirt  and  mittens  of  Governor  Bradford's  infancy. 
The  ends  of  the  stiff,  little,  linen  mittens  have  evi- 
dently been  worn  off  by  the  active  friction  of  baby 
fingers  and  then  been  replaced  by  patches  of  red  and 
white  cheney  or  calico.      The  gowns  are  generally 


CHILD   LIFE  0 

rather  shapeless,  large  -  necked  sacks  of  linen  or 
dimity,  made  and  embroidered,  of  course,  entirely  by 
hand,  and  drawn  into  shape  by  narrow,  cotton  ferret 
or  linen  bobbin.  In  summer  and  winter  the  baby's 
head  was  always  closely  covered  with  a  cap,  or 
£/"  biggin "  often  warmly  wadded,  which  was  more 
comforting  in  winter  than  comfortable  in  summer. 

The  seventeenth  century  baby  slept,  as  does  his 
nineteenth  century  descendant,  in  a  cradle,  frequently 
made  of  heavy  panelled  or  carved  wood,  and  always 
deeply  hooded  to  protect  him  from  the  constant 
drafts.  Twins  had  cradles  with  hoods  at  both 
ends.  Judge  Sewall  paid  sixteen  shillings  for  a 
wicker  cradle  for  one  of  his  many  children.  The 
baby  was  carried  upstairs,  when  first  moved,  with 
silver  and  gold  in  his  hand  to  bring  him  wealth  and 
cause  him  always  to  rise  in  the  world,  just  as  babies 
are  carried  upstairs  by  superstitious  nurses  nowa- 
days, and  he  had  "  scarlet  laid  on  his  head  to  keep 
him  from  harm."  He  was  dosed  with  various  nos- 
trums that  held  full  sway  in  the  nursery  even  until 
Federal  days,  **  Daffy's  Elixir "  being  perhaps  the 
most  widely  known,  and  hence  the  most  widely 
harmful.  It  was  valuable  enough  (in  one  sense  of 
the  word)  to  be  sharply  fought  over  in  old  England 
in  Queen  Anne's  time,  and  to  have  its  disputed 
ownership  the  cause  of  many  lawsuits.  Advertise- 
ments of  it  frequently  appear  in  the  Boston  News 
Letter  and  other  New  England  newspapers  of  early 
date. 

The  most  common  and  largely  dosed  diseases  of 


6  OLD    NEW   ENGLAND 

early  infancy  were,  I  judge  from  contemporai-y 
records,  to  use  the  plain  terms  of  the  times,  worms, 
rickets,  and  fits.  Curiously  enough.  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
wrote  of  the  rickets  as  a  new  disease,  scarce  so  old  as 
to  afford  good  observation,  and  wondered  whether  it 
existed  in  the  American  plantations.  In  old  medical 
books  which  were  used  by  the  New  England  colonists 
I  find  manifold  receipts  for  the  cure  of  these  infan- 
tile diseases.  Snails  form  the  basis,  or  rather  the 
chief  ingredient,  of  many  of  these  medicines.  Indeed, 
I  should  fancy  that  snails  must  have  been  almost 
exterminated  in  the  near  vicinity  of  towns,  so  largely 
were  they  sought  for  and  employed  medicinally. 
There  are  several  receipts  for  making  snail- water,  or 
snail-pottage ;  here  is  one  of  the  most  pleasing  ones  : 

"  The  admirable  and  most  famous  Snail  water. — Take 
a  peck  of  garden  Sliel  Snails,  wash  them  well  in  Small 
Beer,  and  put  them  in  an  oven  till  they  have  done  mak- 
ing a  Noise,  then  take  them  out  and  wipe  them  well  from 
the  green  froth  that  is  upon  them,  and  bruise  them  shels 
and  all  in  a  Stone  Mortar,  then  take  a  Quart  of  Earthworms, 
scowre  them  with  salt,  slit  them,  and  wash  well  with 
water  from  their  filth,  and  in  a  stone  Mortar  beat  them 
in  pieces,  then  lay  in  the  bottom  of  your  distilled  pot 
Angelica  two  handfuls,  and  two  handfuls  of  Celandine 
upon  them,  to  which  put  two  quarts  of  Rosemary  flowers, 
Bearsfoot,  Agrimony,  red  Dock  roots,  Bark  of  Barberries, 
Be  tony  wood  Sorrel  of  each  two  handfuls,  Kue  one  hand- 
ful ;  then  lay  the  Snails  and  Worms  on  top  of  the  hearbsand 
flowers,  then  pour  on  three  Gallons  of  the  Strongest  Ale, 


CHILD   LIFE  7 

and  let  it  stand  all  niglit,  in  the  morning  put  in  three 
ounces  of  Cloves  beaten,  sixpenny  worth  of  beaten  Saffron, 
and  on  the  top  of  them  six  ounces  of  shaved  Hartshorne, 
then  set  on  the  Limbeck,  and  close  it  w^ith  paste  and  so 
receive  the  water  by  pintes,  which  will  be  nine  in  all,  the 
first  is  the  strongest,  whereof  take  in  the  morning  two 
spoonfuls  in  four  spoonfuls  of  small  Beer,  the  like  in  the 
Afternoon." 

Truly,  the  poor  rickety  child  deserved  to  be  cured. 
Snails  also  were  used  externally  : 

"  To  anoint  the  Ricketed  Childs  Limbs  and  to  recover 
it  in  a  short  time,  though  the  child  be  so  lame  as  to  go 
upon  crutches  : 

"  Take  a  peck  of  Garden  Snailes  and  bruse  them,  put 
them  into  a  course  Canvass  bagg,  and  hang  it  up,  and  set 
a  dish  under  to  receive  the  liquor  that  droppeth  from 
them,  wherewith  anoint  the  Childe  in  every  Joynt  which 
you  perceive  to  be  weak  before  the  fire  every  morning 
and  evening.  This  I  have  known  make  a  Patient  Childe 
that  was  extream  weak  to  go  alone  using  it  only  a  week 
time." 

There  were  also  "  unguents  to  anoynt  the  Ricketted 
Childs  breast,"  and  various  drinks  to  be  given  "  to 
the  patient  childe  fasting,"  as  they  termed  him  in 
Avhat  appears  to  us  a  half -comic,  though  wholly  truth- 
ful appellation. 

For  worms  and  fits  there  were  some  frightful  doses 
of  senna  and  rhubarb  and  snails,  with  a  slight  re- 
deeming admixture  of  prunes  ;  and  as  for  "  CoUick  " 


8  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

and  "  Stomack-Acli,"  I  feel  sure  every  respectable 
Puritan  patient  child  died  rather  than  swallow  the 
disgusting  and  nauseous  comjpounds  that  were  offered 
to  him  for  his  relief. 

Puritan  babies  also  wore  medical  ornaments,  "  ano- 
dyne necklaces."  I  find  them  advertised  in  the  Bos- 
ton Evening  Post  as  late  as  1771 — "  Anodine  Neck- 
laces for  the  Easy  breeding  of  Childrens  Teeth," 
1  worn  as  nowadays  children  wear  strings  of  amber 
V  beads  to  avert  croup. 

Another  medicine  "  to  make  childrens  teeth  come 
without  paine  "  was  this :  "  Take  the  head  of  a  Hare 
boyled  a  walm  or  two  or  roahed;  and  with  the 
braine  thereof  mingle  Honey  and  butter  and  there- 
with anoynt  the  Childes  gums  as  often  as  you 
please."  Still  further  advice  was  to  scratch  the 
child's  gums  with  an  osprey  bone,  or  to  hang  fawn's 
teeth  or  wolf's  fangs  around  his  neck — an  ugly  neck- 
lace. 

The  first  scene  of  gayety  upon  which  the  chilled 
baby  opened  his  sad  eyes  was  when  his  mother  was 
taken  from  her  great  bed  and  "  laid  on  a  pallat,"  and 
the  heavy  curtains  and  valances  of  harrateen  or  serge 
were  hung  within  and  freshened  with  "curteyns  and 
valiants  of  cheney  or  calico."  Then,  or  a  day  or  two 
later,  the  midwife,  the  nurses,  and  all  the  neighbor- 
ing women  who  had  helped  with  advice  or  work  in 
the  household  during  the  first  week  or  two  of  the 
child's  life,  were  bidden  to  a  dinner.  This  was  also 
a  French  fashion,  as  "  Les  Caquets  de  VAccoucJiee,^^ 
the  popular  book  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.,  proves. 


CHILD   LIFE  9 

Doubtless  at  this  New  England  amphidromia  the 
**  groaning  beer  "  was  drunk,  though  Sewall  "  brewed 
my  Wives  Groaning  Beer "  two  months  before  the 
child  was  born.  By  tradition,  "  groaning  cake,"  to  be 
used  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  the  child,  and  given 
to  visitors  for  a  week  or  two  later,  also  was  made ;  but 
I  find  no  allusion  to  it  under  that  name  in  any  of  the 
diaries  of  the  times.  At  this  women's  dinner  good 
substantial  viands  were  served.  "  Women  din'd  with 
rost  Beef  and  minc'd  Pyes,  good  Cheese  and  Tarts." 
When  another  Sewall  baby  was  scarcely  two  weeks 
old,  seventeen  women  were  dined  at  Judge  Sewall's 
on  equally  solid  meats,  "  Boil'd  Pork,  Beef,  Fowls, 
very  good  Eost  Beef,  Turkey,  Pye  and  Tarts." 
Madam  Downing  gave  her  women  "  plenty  of  sack 
and  claret."  A  survival  of  this  custom  existed  for 
many  years  in  the  fashion  of  drinking  caudle  at  tho 
bedside  of  the  mother. 

As  might  be  expected  of  a  man  who  diverted 
himself  in  attending  the  dissection  of  an  Indian, 
which  gruesome  gayety  exhilarated  him  into  spend- 
ing a  tidy  sum — for  him  —  on  drinks  and  feeing 
"  the  maid ;  "  and  in  visiting  his  family  tomb ;  and 
who,  when  he  took  his  wife  on  a  pleasure  trip  to  Dor- 
chester "  to  eat  cherries  and  rasberries,"  spent  his 
entire  day  wi thin-doors  reading  that  cheerful  book, 
Calvin  on  Psalms  ; — in  the  house  of  such  a  pleasure- 
seeker  but  small  provision  was  made  for  the  enter- 
tainment or  amusement  of  his  children.  They  were 
sometimes  led  solemnly  to  the  house  of  some  old, 
influential,  or  pious  person,  who  formally  gave  them 


10  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

liis  blessing.  He  took  them  also  to  some  of  tlie 
funerals  of  the  endless  procession  of  dead  Bostonians 
that  files  sombrely  through  the  pages  of  his  diary,  to 
the  funeral  of  their  baby  brother,  little  Stephen  Sew- 
all,  when  "  Sam  and  his  sisters  (who  were  about 
five  and  six  years  old)  cryed  much  coming  home 
and  at  home,  so  that  I  could  hardly  quiet  them.  It 
seems  they  looked  into  Tomb,  and  Sam  said  he  saw 
a  great  Coffin  there,  his  Grandfathers."  These  were 
not  the  only  tears  that  Sam  and  Betty  and  Hannah 
shed  through  fear  of  death.  When  Betty  was  a 
year  older  her  father  wrote : 

"  It  falls  to  my  daughter  EHzabetbs  Share  to  read  the 
24  of  Isaiah  which  she  doth  with  many  Tears  not  being 
very  well,  and  the  Contents  of  the  Chapter  and  Sympathy 
with  her  draw  Tears  from  me  also." 

Two  days  later,  Sam,  who  was  then  about  ten 
years  old,  also  showed  evidence  of  the  dejectioir'of 
soul  around  him. 

"  Richard  Dumer,  a  flourishing*  youth  of  9  years  old 
dies  of  the  Small  Pocks.  I  tell  Sam  of  it  and  what  need 
he  had  to  prepare  for  Death,  and  therefore  to  endeavor 
really  to  pray,  when  he  said  over  the  Lord's  Prayer :  He 
seemed  not  much  to  mind,  eating  an  Aple  ;  but  when  he 
came  to  say  Our  Father  he  burst  out  into  a  bitter  Cry  and 
said  he  was  afraid  he  should  die.  I  pray'd  with  him  and 
read  Scriptures  comforting  against  Death,  as  O  death 
where  is  thy  sting,  &c.  All  things  yours.  Life  and 
Immortality  brought  to  light  by  Christ." 


CHILD   LIFE  11 

In  January,  1695,  Judge  Sewall  writes  : 

"  When  I  came  in,  past  7  at  night,  my  wife  met  me  in 
the  Entry  and  told  me  Betty  had  surprised  them.  I  was 
surprised  with  the  Abruptness  of  the  Relation.  It  seems 
Betty  Sewall  had  given  some  signs  of  dejection  and  sor- 
row ;  but  a  little  while  after  dinner  she  burst  out  into  an 
amazing  cry,  which  caus'd  all  the  family  to  cry  too  ;  Her 
Mother  ask'd  the  reason,  she  gave  none  ;  at  last  said  she 
was  afraid  she  should  goe  to  Hell,  her  Sins  were  not  par- 
don'd.  She  was  first  wounded  by  my  reading  a  sermon 
of  Mr.  Norton's,  Text,  Ye  shall  seek  me  and  shall  not  find 
me.  And  those  words  in  the  sermon.  Ye  shall  seek  me 
and  die  in  your  Sins  ran  in  her  mind  and  terrified  her 
greatly.  And  staying  at  home  she  read  out  of  Mr.  Cotton 
Mather — Why  hath  Satan  filled  thy  Heart,  which  increased 
her  Fear.  Her  Mother  asked  her  whether  she  pray'd. 
She  answered  yes  but  fear'd  her  prayers  were  not  heard 
because  her  sins  were  not  pardon'd." 

A  fortnight  later  lie  writes  : 

"Betty  comes  into  me  as  soon  as  I  was  up  and  tells 
me  the  disquiet  she  had  when  wak'd  ;  told  me  she  was 
afraid  she  should  go  to  Hell,  was  like  S^Dira,  not  Elected. 
Ask'd  her  what  I  should  pray  for,  she  said  that  God 
would  pardon  her  Sin  and  give  her  a  new  heart.  I 
answer'd  her  Fears  as  well  as  I  could  and  pray'd  with 
many  Tears  on  either  part.     Hope  God  heard  us." 

Three  months  later  still  he  makes  this  entry  : 

"  Betty  can  hardly  read  her  chapter  for  weeping,  tells 
me  she  is  afraid  she  is  gon  back,  does  not  taste  that  sweet- 


12  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

ness  in  reading  the  "Word  which  once  she  did  ;  fears  that 
what  was  once  upon  her  is  worn  off.  I  said  what  I  could 
to  her  and  in  the  evening  pray'd  with  her  alone." 

Poor  little  "  wounded  "  Betty !  She  did  not  die  in 
childhood  as  she  feared,  but  lived  to  pass  through 
many  gloomy  hours  of  morbid  introspection  and  of 
overwhelming  fear  of  death,  to  marry  and  become  the 
mother  of  eight  children ;  but  was  always  buffeted 
with  fears  and  tormented  with  doubts,  which  she 
despairingly  communicated  to  her  solemn  and  far 
from  comforting  father ;  and  at  last  she  faced  the 
dread  foe  Death  at  the  age  of  thirty-five.  Judge 
Sewall  wrote  sadly  the  day  of  her  funeral :  "I  hope 
Gl-od  has  delivered  her  now  from  all  her  fears  ;"  every 
one  reading  of  her  bewildered  and  depressed  spiritual 
Afe  must  sincerely  hope  so  with  him.  In  truth,  the 
/  Puritan  children  were,  as  Judge  Sewall  said,  "  stirred 
up  dreadfully  to  seek  God." 

Here  is  the  way  that  one  of  Sewall's  neighbors 
taught  his  little  daughter  when  she  was  four  years 
old: 

"  I  took  my  little  daughter  Katy  into  my  Study  and 
there  I  told  my  child  That  I  am  to  Dy  Shortly  and  Shee 
must,  when  I  am  Dead,  Remember  every  Thing,  that  I 
now  said  unto  her,  I  sett  before  her  the  sinful  condition 
of  her  Nature  and  I  charged  her  to  pray  in  secret  places 
every  day.  That  God  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ  would 
give  her  a  New  Heart.  I  gave  her  to  understand  that 
when  I  am  taken  from  her  she  must  look  to  meet  with 


CHILD  LIFE  13 

more  Humbling  Afflictions  than  she  does  now  she  has  a 
Tender  Father  to  provide  for  her." 

I  hardly  understand  why  Cotton  Mather,  who  was 
really  very  gentle  to  his  children,  should  have  taken 
upon  himself  to  trouble  this  tender  little  blossom 
with  dread  of  his  death.  He  lived  thirty  years  longer, 
and,  indeed,  survived  sinful  little  Katy.  Another 
child  of  his  died  when  two  years  and  seven  months 
old,  and  made  a  most  edifying  end  in  prayer  and 
praise.  His  pious  and  incessant  teachings  did  not, 
however,  prove  wholly  satisfactory  in  their  results, 
especially  as  shown  in  the  career  of  his  son  Increase, 
or  "  Cressy." 

No  age  appeared  to  be  too  young  for  these  remark- 
,able  exhibitions  of  religious  feeling.  Phebe  Bartlett 
was  barely  four  years  old  when  she  passed  through 
her  amazing  ordeal  of  conversion,  a  painful  example 
of  religious  precocity.  The  '*  pious  and  ingenious  Jane 
Turell "  could  relate  many  stories  out  of  the  Script- 
ures before  she  was  two  years  old,  and  was  set  upon 
a  table  "  to  show  off,"  in  quite  the  modern  fashion. 
"Before  she  was  four  years  old  she  could  say  the 
greater  part  of  the  Assembly's  Catechism,  many  of  the 
Psalms,  read  distinctly,  and  make  pertinent  remarks 
on  many  things  she  read.  She  asked  many  astonish- 
ing questions  about  divine  mysteries."  It  is  a  tru- 
ly comic  anticlimax  in  her  father's  stilted  letters  to 
her  to  have  him  end  his  pious  instructions  with  this 
advice :  "  And  as  you  love  me  do  not  eat  green 
apples.'* 


14  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Of  the  demeanor  of  children  to  their  parents 
naught  can  be  said  but  praise.  Eespectful  in  word 
and  deed,  every  letter,  every  record  shows  that  the 
young  Puritans  truly  honored  their  fathers  and 
mothers.  It  were  well  for  the^^o  thus  obey  the  law 
of  God,  for  by  the  law  of  the  land  high-handed  dis- 
obedience of  parents  was  punishable  by  death.  I  do 
not  find  this  penalty  ever  was  paid,  as  it  was  under 
the  sway  of  grim  Calvin,  a  fact  which  redounds  to  the 
credit  both  of  justice  and  youth  in  colonial  days. 

It  was  not  strange  that  Judge  Sewall,  always  find- 
ing in  natural  events  and  appearances  symbols  of 
spiritual  and  religious  signification,  should  find  in  his 
children  painful  types  of  original  sin. 

"Nov.  6,  1692. — Joseph  threw  a  Iniop  of  Brass  and  hit 
his  Sister  Betty  on  the  forehead  so  as  to  make  it  bleed ;  and 
upon  which,  and  for  his  playing  at  Prayer-time  and  eating 
when  Keturn  Thanks,  I  whip'd  him  pretty  smartly.  When 
I  first  went  in  (call'd  by  his  Grandmother)  he  sought  to 
shadow  and  hide  himself  from  me  behind  the  head  of  the 
Cradle  ;  which  gave  me  the  sorrowful  remembrance  of 
Adam's  carriage." 

It  was  natural,  too,  that  Judge  Sewall's  children 
should  be  timid ;  they  ran  in  terror  to  their  father's 
chamber  at  the  approach  of  a  thunderstorm  ;  and, 
living  in  mysterious  witchcraft  days,  they  fled  scream- 
ing through  the  hall,  and  their  mother  with  them,  at 
the  sudden  entrance  of  a  neighbor  with  a  rug  over 
her  head. 

All  youthful  Puritans  were   not  as  godly  as  tlio 


CHILD  LIFE  15 

young  Sewalls.     Nathaniel  Mather  wrote  thus  in  his 
diary : 

*'  When  very  young  I  went  astray  from  God  and  my 
Diind  was  altogether  taken  with  vanities  and  follies  :  such 
as  the  remembrance  of  them  doth  greatly  abase  my  soul 
within  me.  Of  the  manifold  sins  which  then  I  was  guilty 
of,  none  so  sticks  upon  me  as  that,  being  very  young,  I 
was  lohitliiig  on  the  Sabbath-day  ;  and  for  fear  of  being 
seen,  I  did  it  behind  the  door.  A  great  reproach  of  God  1  a 
specimen  of  that  atheism  I  brought  into  the  world  with 
me!" 

It  is  satisfactory  to  add  that  this  young  prig  of  a 
Mather  died  when  nineteen  years  of  age.  Except  in 
Jonathan  Edwards's  ''  Narratives  of  Surprising  Con- 
versions," no  more  painful  examples  of  the  Puritani- 
cal religious  teaching  of  the  young  can  be  found  than 
the  account  given  in  the  Ilagnalia  of  various  young 
souls  in  whom  the  love  of  God  was  remarkably  bud- 
ding, especially  this  same  unwholesome  Nathaniel 
Mather.  His  diary  redounded  in  dismal  groans  and 
self-abasement :  he  wrote  out  in  detail  his  covenants 
with  God.  He  laid  out  his  minute  rules  and  direc- 
tions in  his  various  religious  duties.  He  lived  in 
prayer  thrice  a  day,  and  "  did  not  slubber  over  his 
prayers  with  hasty  amputations,  but  wrestled  in  them 
for  a  good  part  of  an  hour."  He  prayed  in  his  sleep. 
He  fasted.  He  made  long  lists  of  sins,  long  cata- 
logues of  things  forbidden,  "  and  then  fell  a-stoning 
them."  He  "chewed  much  on  excellent  sermons." 
He  not  only  read  the  Bible,  but  "  obliged  himself  to 


•J 


16  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

fetch  a  note  and  prayer  out  of  each  verse,"  as  he  read. 
In  spite  of  all  these  preparations  for  a  joyous  hope 
and  faith,  he  lived  in  the  deepest  despair ;  was  full  of 
blasphemous  imaginations,  horrible  conceptions  of 
God,  was  dejected,  self-loathing,  and  wretched.  In- 
deed, as  Lowell  said,  soul-saving  was  to  such  a  Chris- 
tian the  dreariest,  not  the  cheerfullest  of  businesses. 
That  the  welfare,  if  not  the  pleasure,  of  their  chil- 
dren lay  very  close  to  the  hearts  of  the  Pilgrims,  we 
cannot  doubt.  Governor  Bradford  left  an  account  of 
the  motives  for  the  emigration  from  Holland  to  the 
new  world,  and  in  a  few  sentences  therein  he  gives 
one  of  the  deepest  reasons  of  all — the  intense  yearn- 
ing for  the  true  well-being  of  the  children ;  we  can 
read  between  the  lines  the  stern  and  silent  love  of 
those  noble  men,  love  seldom  expressed  but  ever 
present,  and  the  rigid  sense  of  duty,  duty  to  be  ful- 
filled as  well  as  exacted.  Bradford  wrote  thus  of  the 
Pilgrims : 

"As  necessitie  was  a  taskmaster  over  them,  so  they 
were  forced  to  be  such,  not  only  to  their  servants,  but  in 
a  sorte,  to  their  dearest  children  ;  the  which,  as  it  did  not 
a  little  wound  ye  tender  harts  of  many  a  loving  father 
and  mother,  so  it  produced  likewise  sundrie  sad  and  sor- 
rowful effects.  For  many  of  their  children,  that  were  of 
best  dispositions  and  gracious  inclinations,  haveing  lernde 
to  bear  ye  yoake  in  their  youth,  and  willing  to  bear  parte 
of  their  parents  burden,  were,  often  times  so  oppressed 
with  their  hevie  labours,  that  though  their  minds  were 
free  and  willing,  yet  their  bodies  bowed  under  ye  weight 
of  ye  same,  and  become  decreped  in  their  early  youth ; 


CHILD   LIFE  17 

the  vigor  of  nature  being  consumed  in  ye  very  budd  as  it 
were.  But  that  which  was  more  lamentable  and  of  all 
sorrowes  most  heavie  to  be  borne,  was,  that  many  of  their 
children,  by  these  occasions,  and  ye  great  licentiousness 
of  youth  in  ye  countrie,  and  ye  manifold  temptations  of 
the  place,  were  drawn  away  by  evill  examples  into  ex- 
travagante  and  dangerous  courses,  getting  ye  raines  off 
their  neks  and  departing  from  their  parents.  Some  be- 
came souldiers,  others  took  upon  them  for  viages  by  sea, 
and  other  some  worse  courses,  tending  to  disolutenes 
and  the  danger  of  their  soules,  to  ye  great  greef  of  their 
parents  and  dishonor  of  God.  So  that  they  saw  their 
l^osteritie  would  be  in  danger  to  degenerate  and  be  cor- 
rupted." 

Though  Judge  Sewall  could  control  and  restrain 
his  children,  his  power  waxed  weak  over  his  backslid- 
ing and  pleasure-seeking  grandchildren,  and  they  an- 
noyed him  sorely.  Sam  Hirst,  the  son  of  poor  timid 
Betty,  lived  with  his  grandfather  for  a  time,  and  on 
April  1st,  1719,  the  Judge  wrote  : 

"In  the  morning  I  dehorted  Sam  Hirst  and  Grindall 
Eawsou  from  playing  Idle  tricks  because  'twas  first  of 
April :  They  were  the  greatest  fools  that  did  so.  N.  E. 
Men  came  hither  to  avoid  anniversary  days,  the  keeping 
of  them  such  as  the  25th  of  Deer.  How  displeasing  must 
it  be  to  God  the  giver  of  our  Time  to  keep  anniversary 
days  to  play  the  fool  with  ourselves  and  others." 

Ten  years  earlier  the  Judge  had  written  to  the 
Boston  schoolmaster,  begging  him  to  "  insinuate  into 
the  Scholars  the  Defiling  and  Provoking  nature  of 


18  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

such  a  roolish  Practice  "  as  playing  tricks  on  April 
first. 

Sam  was  but  a  sad  losel,  and  vexed  him  in  other 
and  more  serious  matters.  On  March  15th,  1725,  the 
Judge  wrote : 

"  Sam  Hirst  got  up  betime  iu  the  morning,  and  took 
Ben  Swett  with  him  and  went  into  the  Comon  to  play 
Wicket.  Went  before  anybody  was  up,  left  the  door 
open  :  Sam  came  not  to  prayer  at  which  I  was  much  dis- 
pleased." 

Two  days  later  he  writes  thus  peremptorily  of  his 
grandson : 

"Did  the  like  again,  but  took  not  Ben  with  him.  I 
told  him  he  could  not  lodge  here  practicing  thus.  So  he 
log'd  elsewhere." 

Though  Boston  boys  played  "  wicket "  on  Boston 
Common,  I  fancy  the  young  Puritans  had,  as  a  rule, 
few  games,  and  Avere  allowed  few  amusements.  They 
apparently  brought  over  some  English  pastimes  with 
them,  for  in  1657  it  was  found  necessary  to  pass  this 
law  in  Boston : 

"Forasmuch  as  sundry  complaints  are  made  that  sev- 
eral persons  have  received  hurt  by  boys  and  young  men 
playing  at  football  in  the  streets,  these  therefore  are  to 
enjoin  that  none  be  found  at  that  game  in  any  of  the 
streets,  lanes  or  enclosures  of  this  town  under  the  penalty 
of  twenty  shillings  for  every  such  ojBfence." 


CHILD  LIFE  19 

One  needless  piece  of  cruelty  whicli  was  exercised 
toward  boys  by  Puritan  lawgivers  is  shown  by  one 
of  the  enjoined  duties  of  the  tithingman.  He  was 
ordered  to  keep  all  boys  from  swimming  in  the  water. 
I  do  not  doubt  that  the  boys  swam,  since  each  tith- 
>^ngman  had  ten  families  under  his  charge ;  but  of 
course  they  could  not  swim  as  often  nor  as  long  as 
they  wished.  From  the  brother  sport  of  winter, 
skating,  they  were  not  debarred ;  and  they  went  on 
thin  ice,  and  fell  through  and  were  drowned,  just  as 
country  boys  are  nowadays.  Judge  Sewall  wrote  on 
November  30th,  1696 : 

"  Many  scholars  go  in  the  afternoon  to  Scate  on  Fresh 
Pond.    Wm.  Maxwell  and  John  Eyre  fall  in,  are  drowned." 

In  the  Neio  England  Weekly  Journal  of  January 
15th,  1728,  we  read : 

"  On  Monday  last  Two  Young  Persons  who  were  Broth- 
ers, viz  Mr.  George  and  Nathan  Howell  diverting  them- 
selves by  Skating  at  the  bottom  of  the  Common,  the  Ice 
breaking  under  them  they  were  both  drowned  ;" 

and  in  the  same  journal  of  two  Aveeks  later  date  we 
find  record  of  another  death  by  drowning. 

"  A  young  man,  viz,  Mr.  Comfort  Foster,  skating  on 
the  ice  from  Squantum  Point  to  Dorchester,  fell  into  the 
Water  &  was  drown'd.     He  was  about  16  or  18  years  of 


Advertisements  of  "Mens  and  Boys  Scates"  ap- 
pear in  the  Boston  Gazette,  of  1749,  and  the  Bostoyi 


20  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

Evening  Post,  of  1758.  The  February  Neivs  Letter, 
of  1769,  has  a  notice  of  the  sale  of  "  Best  Holland 
Scates  of  Different  Sizes." 

In  the  list  of  goods  on  board  a  prize  taken  by  a 
privateersman  in  1712  were  "  Boxes  of  Toys."  Hig- 
ginson,  writing  to  his  brother  in  1695,  told  him  that 
"  toys  would  sell  if  in  small  quantity."  In  exceeding 
small  quantity  one  would  fancy.  In  1743  the  Boston 
Neios  Letter  advertised  "  English  and  Dutch  Toys  for 
Children."  Not  until  October,  1771,  on  the  lists  of 
the  Boston  shop-keepers,  who  seemed  to  advertise 
and  to  sell  every  known  article  of  dry  goods,  hard- 
ware, house  furnishing,  ornament,  dress  and  food^ 
came  that  single  but  pleasure  -  filled  item  "Boys 
Marbles."  "Battledores  and  Shuttles"  appeared  in 
1761.  I  know  that  no  little  maids  could  ever  have 
lived  without  dolls,  not  even  the  serious -minded 
daughters  of  the  Pilgrims;  but  the  only  dolls  that 
were  advertised  in  colonial  newspapers  were  the 
"  London  drest  babys "  of  milliners  and  mantua- 
makers,  that  were  sent  over  to  serve  as  fashion 
plates  for  modish  New  England  dames.  A  few  cen- 
^  tury  -  old  dolls  still  survive  Revolutionary  times, 
wooden-faced  monstrosities,  shapeless  and  mean,  but 
doubtless  well-beloved  and  cherished  in  the  days  of 
their  youth. 

As  years  rolled  by  and  eighteenth  century  frivolity 
and  worldliness  took  the  place  of  Puritan  sobriety 
and  religion.  New  England  children  shared  with 
their  elders  in  that  growing  love  of  amusement,  which 
found  but  few  and  inadequate  methods  of  expression 


CHILD  LIFE  21 

in  the  lives  of  either  old  or  young.  In  the  year  1771 
there  was  sent  from  Nova  Scotia  a  young  miss  of 
New  England  parentage — Anna  Green  Winslow — 
to  live  with  her  aunt  and  receive  a  "finishing"  in 
Boston  schools.  For  the  edification  of  her  parents 
and  her  own  practice  in  penmanship,  this  bright 
little  maid  kept  a  diary,  of  which  portions  have  been 
preserved,  and  which  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  is  the 
most  sprightly  record  of  the  daily  life  of  a  girl  of  her 
age  that  I  have  ever  read.  There  is  not  a  dull  word 
in  it,  and  every  page  has  some  statement  of  historical 
value.  She  was  twelve  years  old  shortly  after  the 
diary  was  begun,  and  she  then  had  a  "  coming-out 
party  " — she  became  a  "  miss  in  her  teens."  To  this 
rout  only  young  ladies  of  her  own  age  and  in  the 
most  elegant  Boston  society  were  invited — no  rough 
Boston  boys.  Miss  Anna  has  written  for  us  more 
than  one  prim  and  quaint  little  picture  of  similar 
parties — here  is  one  of  her  clear  and  stiff  little  de- 
scriptions ;  and  a  graphic  account  also  of  the  evening 
dress  of  a  young  girl  at  that  time. 

^  "  I  have  now  the  jpleasure  to  give  you  the  result  Viz  ;  a 
very  genteel  well  regulated  assembly  which  we  had  at 
Mr.  Soleys  last  evening,  Miss  Soley  being  mistress  of 
the  ceremony.  Miss  Soley  desired  me  to  assist  Miss 
Hannah  in  making  out  a  list  of  guests  which  I  did. 
Sometime  since  I  wrote  all  the  invitation  cards.  There 
was  a  large  company  assembled  in  a  large  handsome 
upper  room  in  the  new  end  of  the  house.  We  had  two 
fiddles  and  I  had  the  honor  to  open  the  diversion  of  the 
evening  in  a  minuet  with  Miss  Soley.     Here  follows  a  list 


22  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

of  the  company  as  we  form'd  for  country-dancing.  Miss 
Soley  and  Miss  Anna  Green  Winslow;  Miss  Calif  and 
Miss  Scott ;  Miss  Williams  and  Miss  McLarth ;  Miss 
Codman  and  Miss  Winslow ;  Miss  Ives  and  Miss  Coffin  ; 
Miss  Scollay  and  Miss  Bella  Coffin ;  Miss  W^aldo  and 
Miss  Quinsey ;  Miss  Glover  and  Miss  Draper ;  Miss 
Hubbard  and  Miss  Cregur  (usually  pronounced  Kicker) 
and  two  Miss  Sheafs  were  invited  but  were  sick  or  sorry 
and  beg'd  to  be  excused. 

"  There  was  a  little  Miss  Kussel  and  little  ones  of  the 
family  present  who  could  not  dance.  As  spectators  there 
were  Mr.  &  Mrs.  Deming,  Mr.  &  Mrs.  Sweetser,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Soley,  Mr.  &  Mrs.  Claney,  Mrs.  Draper,  Miss  Orice, 
Miss  Hannah — our  treat  was  nuts,  raisins,  cakes,  Wine, 
punch  hot  and  cold  all  in  great  plenty.  We  had  a  very 
agi-eeable  evening  from  5  to  10  o'clock.  For  variety  we 
woo'd  a  widow,  hunted  the  whistle,  threaded  the  needle, 
&  while  the  company  was  collecting  we  diverted  our- 
selves with  playing  of  pawns  — no  rudeness  Mamma  I 
assure  you.  Aunt  Deming  desires  you  would  particularly 
observe  that  the  elderly  part  of  the  Company  were  Spec- 
tators only,  that  they  mixed  not  in  either  of  the  above- 
described  scenes. 

*'I  was  dressed  in  my  yelloe  coat,  black  bib  and  apron, 
black  feathers  on  my  head,  my  paste  comb  and  all  my 
paste  garnet  marquasett  &  jet  pins,  together  with  my 
silver  plume — my  locket,  rings,  black  collar  round  my 
neck,  black  mitts  and  yards  of  blue  ribbon  (black  and 
blue  is  high  tast)  striped  tucker  &  ruffles  (not  my  best) 
and  my  silk  shoes  completed  my  dress." 

How  clear  the  picture :  can  you  not  see  it — the 
low  raftered  chamber  softly  alight  with  candles  on 


CHILD  LIFE  23 

mantel-tree  and  in  sconces ;  the  two  fiddles  soberly 
squeaking  :  the  rows  of  demure  little  Boston  maids, 
all  of  New  England  Brahmin  blood,  in  high  rolls, 
with  nodding  plumes  and  sparkling  combs,  with 
ruffles  and  mitts,  little  miniatures  of  their  elegant 
mammas,  soberly  walking  and  curtseying  through 
the  stately  minuet  "with  no  rudeness  I  can  assure 
you;"  and  discreetly  partaking  of  hot  and  cold 
punch  afterward. 

There  came  at  this  time  to  another  lady  in  this 
Boston  court  circle  a  grandchild  eight  years  of  age, 
from  the  Barbadoes,  to  also  attend  Boston  schools. 
Missy  left  her  grandmother's  house  in  high  dudgeon 
because  she  could  not  have  wine  at  all  her  meals. 
And  her  parents  upheld  her,  saying  she  had  been 
brought  up  a  lady  and  must  have  wine  when  she 
wished  it.  Evidently  Cobbett's  statement  of  the  free 
drinking  of  wine,  cider,  and  beer  by  American  chil- 
dren was  true — as  Anna  Green  Winslow's  "treat"  * 
would  also  show. 

Though  Puritan  children  had  few  recreations  and 
amusements,  they  must  have  enjoyed  a  very  cheerful,  y 
happy  home  life.    Large  families  abounded.     Cotton 
Mather  says : 

"  One  woman  had  not  less  than  twenty- two  children, 
and  another  had  no  less  than  twenty-three  children  by 
one  husband  whereof  nineteen  lived  to  mans  estate,  and  a 
third  who  was  mother  to  seven  and  twenty  children." 

Sir  William  Phips  was  one  of  twenty-six  children, 
all  with  the  same  mother.     Printer  Green  had  thirty 


24  OLD  iq-EW   ENGLAND 

children.  The  Eev.  John  Sherman,  of  Watertown, 
had  twenty-six  children  by  two  wives — twenty  by  his 
last  wife.  The  Eev.  Samuel  Willard,  first  minister  to 
Groton,  had  twenty  children,  and  his  father  had 
seventeen  children.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  one  of 
a  family  of  seventeen.  Charles  Francis  Adams  has 
told  ns  of  the  fruitful  vines  of  old  Braintree. 

The  little  Puritans  rejoiced  in  some  very  singular 
names,  the  offspring  of  Koger  Clap  being  good  ex- 
amples :  Experience,  "Waitstill,  Preserved,  Hopestill, 
Wait,  Thanks,  Desire,  Unite,  and  Supply. 

Of  the  food  given  Puritan  children  we  know  but 
little.  In  an  old  almanac  of  the  eighteenth  century 
I  find  a  few  sentences  of  advice  as  to  the  "Easy 
Bearing  of  Children."  The  writer  urges  that  boys 
as  soon  as  they  can  run  alone  go  without  hats  to 
harden  them,  and  if  possible  sleep  without  night- 
caps, as  soon  as  they  have  any  hair.  He  advises  al- 
ways to  wet  children's  feet  in  cold  water  and  thus 
make  them  (the  feet)  tough,  and  also  to  have  children 
wear  thin-soled  shoes  "  that  the  wet  may  come  freely 
in."  He  says  young  children  should  never  be  al- 
lowed to  drink  cold  drinks,  but  should  always  have 
their  beer  a  little  heated  ;  that  it  is  "  best  to  feed 
them  on  Milk,  Pottage,  Flummery,  Bread,  and  Cheese, 
and  not  let  them  drink  their  beer  till  they  have  first 
eaten  a  piece  of  Brown  Bread."  Fancy  a  young  child 
nowadays  making  a  meal  of  brown  bread  and  cheese 
with  warm  beer !  He  suggests  that  they  drink  but  little 
wine  or  liquor,  and  sleep  on  quilts  instead  of  feathers. 
In  such  ways  were  reared  our  Revoluiionary  heroes. 


CHILD   LIFE  25 

Of  the  dazzling  and  beautiful  array  in  our  modern 
confectioners'  shops  little  Priscilla  and  Hate-Evil 
could  never  have  dreamed,  even  in  visions.  A  few 
comfit-makers  made  "Lemon  Pil  Candy,  Angelica 
Candy,  Candy'd  Eryngo  Eoot  &  Carroway  Comfits ; " 
and  a  few  sweetmeats  came  to  port  in  foreign  vessels, 
"  Sugar'd  Corrinder  Seeds,"  "  Glaz'd  Almonds,"  and 
strings  of  rock-candy.  Whole  jars  of  the  latter  ada- 
mantine, crystalline,  saccharine  delight  graced  the 
shelves  of  many  a  colonial  cupboard.  And  I  suppose 
favored  Salem  children,  the  happy  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  opulent  epicurean  Salem  shipowners,  had  even 
in  colonial  days  Black  Jacks  and  Salem  Gibraltars. 
The  first-named  dainties,  though  dearly  loved  by 
Salem  lads  and  lasses,  always  bore — indeed,  do  still 
bear — too  strong  a  flavor  of  liquorice,  too  haunting  a 
medicinal  suggestion  to  be  loved  by  other  children  of 
the  Puritans.  As  an  instance,  on  a  large  scale,  of  the 
retributive  fate  that  always  pursues  the  candy-eating 
wight,  I  state  that  the  good  ship  Ann  and  Hope 
brought  into  Providence  one  hundred  years  ago,  as 
part  of  her  cargo,  eight  boxes  of  sweetmeats  and 
twenty  tubs  of  sugar  candy,  and  on  the  succeeding 
voyage  sternly  fetched  no  sweets,  but  brought  instead 
forty- eight  boxes  of  rhubarb. 

The  children  doubtless  had  prunes,  figs,  "  cour- 
ance,"  and  I  know  they  had  "  Eaisins  of  the  Sun  " 
and  "  Bloom  Eaisins "  galore.  Advertisements  of 
all  these  fruits  appear  in  the  earliest  newspapers. 
Though  "  China  Oranges  "  were  frequently  given  to 
and  by  Judge  Sewall,  I  have  not  found  them  adver- 


26  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

tised  for  sale  till  Eevolutionary  times,  and  I  fancy 
few  children  had  then  tasted  them.  The  native  and 
domestic  fruits  were  plentiful,  but  many  of  them  were 
poor.  The  apples  and  pears  and  Kentish  cherries 
were  better  than  the  peaches  and  grapes.  The  chil- 
dren gathered  the  summer  benies  in  season,  and  the 
autumn's  plentiful  and  spicy  store  of  boxberries, 
checkerberries,  teaberries  or  gingerbread  berries  with 
October's  brown  nuts.  There  were  gingerbread  and 
*'  cacks  "  even  in  the  earliest  days ;  but  they  were  not 
sold  in  unlimited  numbers.  The  omnipotent  hand  of 
Puritan  law  laid  its  firm  hold  on  their  manufacture. 
Judge  Sewall  often  speaks,  however,  of  Banbury 
cakes  and  Meers  cakes ;  Meer  was  a  celebrated  Bos- 
ion  baker  and  confectioner.  The  colonists  had  also 
a/  egg  cakes  and  marchepanes  and  maccaroons. 

There  were  children's  books  in  those  early  days ; 
not  numerous,  however,  nor  varied  was  the  assort- 
ment from  which  Puritan  youth  in  New  England 
could  choose.     Here  is  the  advertisement  of  one : 

"  Small  book  in  easey  verse  Very  Suitable  for  children, 
entitled  The  Prodigal  Daughter  or  the  Disobedient  Lady 
b    Reclaimed  :  adorned  with  curious  cuts,  Price  Sixpence." 

Somehow,  from  the  suggestion  of  the  title  we  should 
hardly  fancy  this  to  be  an  edifying  book  for  children. 
John  Cotton  supplied  them  with 

"  Spiritual  Milk  for  Boston  Babes  in  Either  England  : 
Drawn  out  of  the  Breasts  of  both  Testaments  for  their 


CHILD   LIFE  27 

Souls  Nourishment.      But  may  be  of  like  Use  to  Any 
Children." 

Another  book  was  published  in  many  editions  and 
sold  in  large  numbers,  and  much  extolled  by  contem- 
porary ministers.     It  was  entitled : 

"  A  Token  for  Children.  Being  the  exact  account  of 
the  Conversion  &  Holy  &  Exemplary  Lives  of  several 
Young  Children  by  James  Janeway." 

To  it  was  added  by  Cotton  Mather  : 

"  Some  examples  of  Children  in  whom  the  fear  of  God 
was  remarkably  Budding  before  they  died ;  in  several 
parts  of  New  England." 

Cotton  Mather  also  wrote :  "  Good  Lessons  for 
Children,  in  Versa."  Other  books  were,  "  A  Looking 
Glasse  for  Children,"  "The  life  of  Elizabeth  Butcher, 
in  the  Early  Piety  series; "  "  The  life  of  Mary  Paddock, 

'^who  died  at  the  age  of  nine ; "  "  The  Childs  new  Play- 
thing" (which  was  a  primer);  "Divine  Songs  in  Easy 
Language;"  and  "Praise  out  of  the  Mouth  of 
Babes  ; "  "A  Particular  Account  of  some  Extraordi- 
nary Pious  Motions  and  devout  Exercises  observed  of 
late  in  many  Children  in  Siberia."  Also  accounts  of 
pious  motions  of  children  in  Silesia  and  of  Jewish 
children  in  Berlin.  One  oasis  appeared  in  the  desert 
waste — after  the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 

i/ tury  Puritan  children  had  Mother  Goose. 

By  1787,  in  Isaiah  Thomas'  list  of  "  books  Suitable 
for  Children  of  all  a^res  "  we  find  less  serious  books. 


28  OLD  NEW   ENGLATTD 

"  Tom  Jones  Abridged,"  "  Peregrine  Pickle 
Abridged,"  "Yice  in  its  Proper  Shape,"  ''  The  Sugar 
Plumb,"  "Bag  of  Nuts  Eeady  Crack'd,"  "Jacky 
Dandy,"  "History  of  BiUy  and  Polly  Friendly." 
Among  the  "  Chapman's  Books  for  the  Edification 
and  Amusement  of  young  Men  and  Women  who  are 
not  able  to  Purchase  those  of  a  Higher  Price  "  are, 
"The  Amours  and  Adventures  of  Two  English 
Gentlemen  in  Italy,"  "Fifteen  Comforts  of  Matri- 
mony," "  The  Lovers  Secretary,"  and  "  Laugh  and 
be  Fat."  Another  advertisement  of  about  the  same 
date  contained,  among  the  books  for  misses,  "The 
Masqued  Wedding,"  "  The  Elopement,"  "  The  Pas- 
sionate Lovers,"  "Sketches  of  the  History  and 
Importance  of  the  Fair  Sex,"  "  Original  Love  Let- 
ters," and  "  Six  Dialogues  of  Young  Misses  Eelating 
to  Matrimony ; "  thus  showing  that  love-stories  were 
not  abhorred  by  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans. 

In  such  an  exceptional  plantation  as  New  England, 
a  colony  peopled  not  by  the  commonplace  and  aver- 

,  age  Englishmen  of  the  day,  but  by  men  of  special 
f  intelligence,  and  almost  universally  of  good  educa- 
tion, it  was  inevitable  that  early  and  profound  atten- 
tion should  be  paid  to  the  establishment  of  schools. 
Cotton  Mather  said  in  1685,  in  his  sermon  before  the 

I  Governor  and  his  Council,  "  the  Youth  in  this  country 
^  are  verie  Sharp  and  early  Ripe  in  their  Capacities." 
So  quickly  had  New  England  air  developed  the  typi- 
cal New  England  traits.  And  the  early  schoolmas- 
ters, too,  may  be  thanked  for  their  scholars'  early  ripe- 
ness and  sharpness. 


CHILD   LIFE  29 

At  an  early  age  both  girls  and  boj^s  were  sent  to 
dame-schools,  where,  if  girls  were  not  taught  much 
book-learning,  they  were  carefully  instructed  in  all 
housewifely  arts.  They  learned  to  cook ;  and  to  spin 
and  weave  and  knit,  not  only  for  home  wear  but  for 
the  shops  ;  even  little  children  could  spin  coarse  tow 
string  and  knit  coarse  socks  for  shop-keepers.  Fine 
knitting  was  well  paid  for,  and  was  a  matter  of  much 
pride  to  the  knitter,  and  many  curious  and  elaborate 
stitches  were  known ;  the  herring-bone  and  the  fox- 
and  geese-patterns  being  prime  favorites.  Initials 
were  knit  into  mittens  and  stockings ;  one  clever 
young  miss  of  Shelburne,  N.  H.,  could  knit  the 
alphabet  and  a  verse  of  poetry  into  a  single  pair  of 
mittens.  Fine  embroidery  was  to  New  England 
women  and  girls  a  delight.  The  Indians  at  an  early 
day  called  the  English  women  "  lazie  Squaes  "  when 
yfhej  saw  the  latter  embroidering  coifs  instead  of  dig- 
ging in  the  fields.  Mr.  Brownell,  the  Boston  school- 
master in  1716,  taught  "  Youug  Gentle  Women  and 
Children  all  sorts  of  Fine  Works  as  Feather  works. 
Filigree,  and  Painting  on  Glass,  Embroidering  a  new 
Way,  Turkey-work  for  Handkerchiefs  two  new  Ways, 
fine  new  Fashion  purses,  flourishing  and  plain  Work." 
We  find  a  Newport  dame  teaching  "  Sewing,  Mark- 
ing, Queen  Stitch  and  Knitting,"  and  a  Boston  shop- 
keeper taking  children  and  young  ladies  to  board  and 
be  taught  "  Dresden  and  Embroidery  on  gauze.  Tent 
Stitch  and  all  sorts  of  Colour'd  Work."  Crewels, 
embroidery,  silks,  and  chenilles  appear  frequently  in 
early  newspapers.     Many  of  the  fruits  of  these  care- 


30  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

f ul  lessons  of  colonial  childbood  remain  to  us ;  quaint 
samplers,  bed  hangings,  petticoats  and  pockets,  and 
frail  lace  veils  and  scarfs.  Miss  Susan  Hayes  Ward 
has  resuscitated  from  these  old  embroideries  a  curious 
stitch  used  to  great  effect  on  many  of  them,  and 
employed  also  on  ancient  Persian  embroideries, 
and  she  points  out  that  the  designs  are  Persian 
also.  This  stitch  was  not  known  in  the  modern 
English  needlework  schools;  but  just  as  good  old 
Elizabethan  words  and  phrases  are  still  used  in  New 
England,  though  obsolete  in  England,  so  this  curious 
old  stitch  has  lived  in  the  colony  when  lost  in  the 
mother  country ;  or,  it  may  be  possible,  since  it  is 
found  so  frequently  in  the  vicinity  of  Plymouth,  that 
the  Pilgrims  obtained  both  stitch  and  designs  in  Hol- 
land, whose  greater  commerce  with  the  Orient  may 
have  supplied  to  deft  EngKsh  fingers  the  Persian 
pattern. 

Other  accomplishments  were  taught  to  girls  ;  "  cut- 
ting of  Escutcheons"  and  paper  flowers — "Papyro- 
tamia"  it  was  ambitiously  called — and  painting  on 
velvet ;  and  quilt-piecing  in  a  hundred  different  and 
difficult  designs.  They  also  learned  to  make  bone 
lace  with  pillow  and  bobbins. 

The  boys  were  thrust  at  once  into  that  iron-handed 
but  wholly  wise  grasp — the  Latin  Grammar.  The 
minds  trained  in  earliest  youth  in  that  study,  as  it 
was  then  taught,  have  made  their  deep  and  noble  im- 
press on  this  nation.  The  study  of  mathematics  was, 
until  well  into  this  century,  a  hopeless  maze  to  many 
youthful  minds.    Doubtless  the  Puritans  learned  mul- 


CHILD   LIFE  31 

tiplication  tables  and  may  have  found  them,  as  did 
Marjorie  Fleming,  "a  horrible  and  wretched  plaege," 
though  no  pious* little  New  Englanders  would  have 
dared  to  say  as  she  did,  "  You  cant  conceive  it  the 
most  Devilish  thing  is  8  times  8  and  7  times  7,  it  is 
what  nature  itself  can't  endure." 

Great  attention  was  paid  to  penmanship.  Spelling 
was  nought  if  the  "  wrighting  "  were  only  fair  and 
flowing.  I  have  never  read  any  criticism  of  teach- 
ers by  either  parents  or  town  officers  save  on  the  one 
question  of  writing.  How  deeply  children  were  versed 
or  grounded  in  the  knowledge  of  the  proper  use  of 
"  Simme  colings  nots  of  interiogations  peorids  and 
commoes,"  I  do  not  know.  A  boundless  freedom  ap- 
parently was  given,  as  was  also  in  orthography — if  we 
judge  from  the  letters  of  the  times,  where  "  horrid 
false  spells,"  as  Cotton  Mather  called  them,  abound'. 

It  is  natural  to  dwell  on  the  religious  teaching  of 
Puritan  children,  because  so  much  of  their  education 
had  a  religious  element  in  it.  They  must  have  felt, 
like  Tony  Lumpkin,  "tired  of  having  good  dinged 
into  'em."  Their  primers  taught  religious  rhymes  ; 
they  read  from  the  Bible,  the  Catechism,  the  Psalm 
Book,  and  that  lurid  rhymed  horror  "  The  Day  of 
Doom  ; "  they  parsed,  too,  from  these  universal  books. 
How  did  they  parse  these  lines  from  the  Bay  Psalm 
Book? 


**  And  sayd  He  would  not  them  waste  ;  had  not 
Moses  stood  (whom  he  chose)  •* 

'fore  him  i'  th'  breach  ;  to  turn  his  wrath 
lest  that  he  should  waste  those." 


32  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Their  "liom  books"— 

*'  books  of  stature  81^11 
Which  with  pellucid  horn  secured  are 
To  save  from  fingers  wet  the  letters  fair," 

those  framed  and  behandled  sheets  of  semi-transpar- 
ent horn,  which  were  worn  hanging  at  the  side  and 
were  studied,  as  late  certainly  as  the  year  1715  by 
children  of  the  Pilgrims,  also  managed  to  instil  with 
the  alphabet  some  religious  words  or  principles. 
Usually  the  Lord's  Prayer  formed  part  of  the  printed 
text.  Though  horn-books  are  referred  to  in  Sew^all's 
diary  and  in  the  letters  of  Wait  Still  Winthrop,  and 
appear  on  stationers'  and  booksellers'  lists  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  I  do  not  know 
of  the  preservation  of  a  single  specimen  to  our  own 
day. 

The  schoolhouses  were  simple  dwellings,  often 
tumbling  down  and  out  of  repair.  The  Boxbury 
teacher  wrote  in  1681 : 

"  Of  inconveniences  [in  the  schoolhouse]  I  shall  men- 
tion no  other  but  the  confused  and  shattered  and  nastie 
posture  that  it  is  in,  not  fitting  for  to  reside  in,  the  glass 
broke,  and  thereupon  very  raw  and  cold  ;  the  floor  very 
much  broken  and  torn  up  to  kindle  fires,  the  hearth 
spoiled,  the  seats  some  burned  and  others  out  of  kilter, 
that  one  had  well-nigh  as  goods  keep  school  in  a  hog  stie 
as  in  it." 

This   schoolhouse   had  been  built  and   furnished 


CHILD   LIB^E  33 

with  some  care  in  1652,  as  this  entry  in  the  town 
records  shows : 

"  The  feoffes  agreed  with  Daniel  Welde  that  he  provide 
convenient  benches  with  forms,  with  tables  for  the 
scholars,  and  a  convenieate  seate  for  the  scholmaster,  a 
Deske  to  put  the  Dictionary  on  and  shelves  to  lay  up 
bookes.'* 

y  The  schoolmaster  "  promised  and  engaged  to  use 
his  best  endeavour  both  by  precept  and  example  to 
instruct  in  all  Scholasticall  morall  and  Theologicall 
discipline  the  children  so  far  as  they  be  capable,  all 
A.  B.  C.  Darians  excepted."  He  was  paid  in  corn, 
barley  or  peas,  the  value  of  £25  per  annum,  and  each 
child,  through  his  parents  or  guardians,  supplied 
half  a  cord  of  wood  for  the  schoolhouse  fire.  If  this 
load  of  wood  were  not  promptly  furnished  the  child 
suffered,  for  the  master  did  not  allow  him  the  benefit 
of  the  fire  ;  that  is,  to  go  near  enough  the  fireplace  to 
feel  the  warmth. 

The  children  of  wise  parents  like  Cotton  Mather, 
were  also  taught  "  opificial  and  beneficial  sciences," 
such  as  the  mystery  of  medicine — a  mystery  indeed  in 
colonial  times. 

Puritan  schoolmasters  believed,  as  did  Puritan  par- 
ents, that  sparing  the  rod  spoiled  the  child,  and  great 
latitude  was  given  in  punishment ;  the  rod  and  ferule 
were  fiercely  and  frequently  plied  "  with  lamming  and 
with  whipping,  and  such  benefits  of  natu^;^ "  as  in 
English  schools  of  the  same  date.     When  young  men 

y  were  publicly  whipped  in  colleges,  children  were  sure 


34  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

to  be  well  trained  in  smaller  schools.  Every  grada- 
tion of  chastisement  was  known  and  every  instrument 
from 

'  *  A  beesome  of  byrche  for  babes  verye  fit 
To  a  long  lastinge  lybbet  for  lubbers  as  meete," 

from  the  "  thimell-pie "  of  the  dame's  school — a 
smart  tapping  on  the  head  with  a  heavy  thimble — to 
belaboring  with  a  heavy  walnut  stick  or  oaken  ruler. 
Master  Lovell,  that  tigerish  Boston  teacher,  whipped 
the  culprit  with  birch  rods  and  forced  another  scholar 
to  hold  the  sufferer  on  his  back.  Other  schoolmasters 
whipped  on  the  soles  of  the  feet,  and  one  teacher 
roared. out,  "Oh  the  Caitiffs!  it  is  good  for  them." 
Not  only  were  children  whipped,  but  many  ingenious 
instruments  of  torture  were  invented.  One  instructor 
made  his  scholars  sit  on  a  "  bark  seat  turned  upside 
down  with  his  thumb  on  the  knot  of  a  floor."  An- 
other master  of  the  inquisition  invented  a  unipod — a 
stool  with  one  leg — sometimes  placed  in  the  middle 
of  the  seat,  sometimes  on  the  edge,  on  which  the  un- 
fortunate scholar  tiresomely  balanced.  Others  sent 
out  the  suffering  pupil  to  cut  a  branch  of  a  tree,  and, 
making  a  split  in  the  large  end  of  the  branch,  sprung 
At  on  the  culprit's  nose,  and  he  stood  painfully 
/  pinched,  an  object  of  ridicule  with  his  spreading 
branch  of  leaves.  One  cruel  master  invented  an  in- 
strument of  torture  which  he  called  a  flapper.  It  was 
a  heavy  piece  of  leather  six  inches  in  diameter  with  a 
hole  in  the  middle,  and  was  fastened  at  the  edge  to  a 
pliable  handle.     The  blistering  pain  inflicted  by  this 


CHILD   LIFE  35 

brutal  instrument  can  well  be  imagined.  At  another 
school,  whipping  of  unlucky  wights  was  done  "  upon 
a  peaked  block  with  a  tattling  stick  ;  "  and  this  ex- 
pression of  colonial  severity  seems  to  take  on  addi- 
tional force  and  cruelty  in  our  minds  that  we  do  not 
at  all  know  what  a  tattling  stick  was,  nor  understand 
what  was  meant  by  a  peaked  block. 

I  often  fancy  I  should  have  enjoyed  living  in  the 
good  old  times,  but  I  am  glad  I  never  was  a  child  in 
colonial  New  England — to  have  been  baptized  in  ice 
water,  fed  on  bro^vn  bread  and  warm  beer,  to  have 
had  to  learn  the  Assembly's  Catechism  and  "  explain 
all  the  Quaestions  with  conferring  Texts,"  to  have  been 
constantly  threatened  with  fear  of  death  and  terror  of 
God,  to  have  been  forced  to  commit  Wigglesworth's 
"  Day  of  Doom  "  to  memory,  and,  after  all,  to  have 
been  whipped  with  a  tattling  stick. 


n 

V 

COUETSHIP  AND  MAEEIAGE  CUSTOMS 

In  the  early  days  of  tlie  New  England  colonies  no 
more  embarrassing  or  hampering  condition,  no  greater 
temporal  ill  could  befall  any  adult  Puritan  than  to  be 
unmarried.  What  could  he  do,  how  could  he  live  in 
that  new  land  without  a  wife  ?  There  were  no  house- 
keepers— and  he  would  scarcely  have  been  allowed 
to  have  one  if  there  were.  What  could  a  woman  do 
in  that  new  settlement  among  unbroken  forests,  un- 
cultivated lands,  without  a  husband  ?  The  colonists 
married  early,  and  they  married  often.  Widowers 
and  widows  hastened  to  join  their  fortunes  and  sor- 
rows. The  father  and  mother  of  Governor  Winslow 
had  been  widow  and  widower  seven  and  twelve  weeks, 
respectively,  when  they  joined  their  families  and 
themselves  in  mutual  benefit,  if  not  in  mutual  love. 
At  a  later  day  the  impatient  Governor  of  New  Hamp- 
shire married  a  lady  but  ten  days  widowed.  Bache- 
lors were  rare  indeed,  and  were  regarded  askance  and 
with  intense  disfavor  by  the  entire  community,  were 
almost  in  the  position  of  suspected  criminals.  They 
were  seldom  permitted  to  live  alone,  or  even  to 
choose  their  residence,  but  had  to  find  a  domicile 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  37 

wherever  and  with  whomsoever  the  Court  assigned. 
In  Hartford  lone-men,  as  Shakespeare  called  them, 
had  to  pay  twenty  shillings  a  week  to  the  town  for 
the  selfish  luxury  of  solitary  living.  No  colonial  law 
seems  to  me  more  arbitrary  or  more  comic  than  this 
order  issued  in  the  town  of  Eastham,  Mass.,  in  1695, 
namely :  ^ 

"Every  unmarried  man  in  the  township  shall  kill  sis 
blackbirds  or  three  crows  while  he  remains  single  ;  as  a 
penalty  for  not  doing  it,  shall  not  be  married  until  he 
obey  this  order." 

Bachelors  were  under  the  special  spying  and  tat- 
tling supervision  of  the  constable,  the  watchman,  and 
the  tithingman,  who,  like  Pliable  in  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress, sat  sneaking  among  his  neighbors  and  reported 
their  "  scirscumstances  and  conuersation."  In  those 
days  a  man  gained  instead  of  losing  his  freedom  by 
marrying.  "  Incurridgement "  to  wedlock  was  given 
bachelors  in  many  towns  by  the  assignment  to  them 
upon  marriage  of  home-lots  to  build  upon.  In  Med- 
field  there  was  a  so-called  Bachelor's  Kow,  which  had 
been  thus  assigned.  In  the  early  days  of  Salem  "  maid 
lotts  "  were  also  granted ;  but  Endicott  wrote  in  the 
town  records  that  it  was  best  to  abandon  the  custom 
and  thus  "  avoid  all  presedents  &  evil  events  of  grant- 
ing lotts  vnto  single  maidens  not  disposed  of."  This 
line  he  crossed  out  and  wrote  instead,  "  for  avoiding 
of  absurdities."  He  kindly,  but  rather  disappoint- 
ingly, gave  one  maid  a  bushel  of  corn  when  she  came 
to  ask  for  a  house  and  lot,  and  told  her  it  would  be  a 


88  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

"bad  president"  for  her  to  keep  house  alone.  A 
maid  had,  indeed,  a  hard  time  to  live  in  colonial 
days,  did  she  persevere  in  her  singular  choice  of  re- 
maining single.  Perhaps  the  colonists  "proverb'd 
with  the  grandsire  phrase,"  that  women  dying  maids 
lead  apes  in  hell.  Maidens  "  withering  on  the  virgin 
thorn,"  in  single  blessedness,  were  hard  to  find.  One 
Mistress  Poole  lived  unmarried  to  great  old  age,  and 
helped  to  found  the  town  of  Taunton  under  most  dis- 
couraging rebuffs  ;  and  in  the  Plymouth  church  record 
of  March  19,  1667,  is  a  record  of  a  death  which  reads 
thus: — 

"Mary  Carpenter  sister  of  Mrs.  AHce  Bradford  wife 
of  Governor  Bradford  being  newly  entered  into  the  91st 
year  of  her  age.  She  was  a  godly  old  maid  never  mar- 
ried." 

The  state  of  old  maidism  was  reached  at  a  very 
early  age  in  those  early  days ;  Higginson  wrote  of  an 
"antient  maid"  of  twenty-five  years.  John  Dunton 
in  his  "  Life  and  Errors  "  wrote  eulogistically  of  one 
such  ideal  "  Virgin  "  who  attracted  his  special  atten- 
tion. 

"  It  is  true  an  old  (or  superanuated)  Maid  in  Boston  is 
thought  such  a  curse,  as  nothing  can  exceed  it  (and  looked 
on  as  a  dismal  spectacle)  yet  she  by  her  good  nature, 
gravity,  and  strict  virtue  convinces  all  (so  much  as  the 
fleering  Beaus)  that  it  is  not  her  necessity  but  her  choice 
that  keeps  her  a  Virgin.  She  is  now  about  thirty  years 
(the  age  which  they  call  a  Thornback)  yet  she  never  dis- 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  39 

guises  herself,  and  talks  as  little  as  she  thinks,  of  Love. 
She  never  reads  any  Plays  or  Romances,  goes  to  no  Balls 
or  Dancing-match  (as  they  do  who  go  to  such  Fairs)  to 
meet  with  Chapmen.  Her  looks,  her  speech,  her  whole 
behavior  are  so  very  chaste,  that  but  once  (at  Govenor*s 
Island,  where  we  went  to  be  merry  at  roasting  a  hog)  go- 
ing to  kiss  her,  I  thought  she  would  have  blushed  to 
death. 

*•  Our  Damsel  knowing  this,  her  conversation  is  gener- 
ally amongst  the  women  (as  there  is  least  danger  from 
that  sex)  so  that  I  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  enjoy  her 
company,  for  most  of  her  time  (save  what  was  taken  up 
in  needle  work  and  learning  French  &c.)  was  spent  in 
Religious  Worship.  She  knew  time  was  a  dressing-room 
for  Eternity,  and  therefore  reserves  most  of  her  hours 
for  better  uses  than  those  of  the  Comb,  the  Toilet  and 
the  Glass. 

"  And  as  I  am  sure  this  is  most  agreeable  to  the  Virgin 
modesty,  which  should  make  Marriage  an  act  rather  of 
their  obedience  than  their  choice.  And  they  that  think 
their  Friends  too  slowpaced  in  the  matter  give  certain 
proof  that  lust  is  their  sole  motive.  But  as  the  Damsel  I 
have  been  describing  would  neither  anticipate  nor  con- 
tradict the  will  of  her  Parents,  so  do  I  assure  you  she  is 
against  Forcing  her  own,  by  marrying  where  she  cannot 
love  ;  and  that  is  the  reason  she  is  still  a  Virgin." 

Hence  it  may  be  seen  that  though  there  was  not  in 
Boston  the  "glorious  phalanx  of  old  maids"  of 
Theodore  Parker's  description,  yet  the  Boston  old 
maid  was  lovely  even  in  colonial  days,  though  she  did 
bear  the  odious  name  of  thornback. 


\ 

40  OLD   NEW  EI^GLAND 

An  English  traveller,  Josselyn,  gives  a  glimpse  of 
Boston  love-making  in  the  year  1663. 

"  On  the  South  there  is  a  small  but  pleasant  Common, 
where  the  Gallants,  a  little  before  sunset,  walk  with  tLeir 
Marmalet-Madams  till  the  nine  o'clock  bell  rings  them 
home  to  their  respective  habitations." 

This  simple  and  quaint  picture  of  youthful  love 
in  the  soft  summer  twilight,  at  that  ever  beautiful 
trysting-place,  gives  an  unwonted  touch  of  senti- 
ment to  the  austere  daily  life  of  colonial  New 
England.  The  omnipotent  Puritan  law-giver,  who 
meddled  and  interfered  in  every  detail,  small  and 
great,  of  the  public  and  private  life  of  the  citizen, 
could  not  leave  untouched,  in  fancy  free,  these 
soberly  promenading  Puritan  sweethearts.  A  Boston 
gallant  must  choose  well  his  marmalet-madam,  must 
proceed  cautiously  in  his  love-making  in  the  gloam- 
ing, obtaining  first  the  formal  permission  of  parents 
or  guardians  ere  he  take  any  step  in  courtship. 
Fines,  imprisonment,  or  the  whipping-post  awaited 
him,  did  he  "  inveigle  the  affections  of  any  maide  or 
maide  servant  "  by  making  love  to  her  without  proper 
authority.  Numberless  examples  might  be  given  to 
prove  that  this  law  was  no  dead  letter.  In  1647,  in 
Stratford,  Will  Colefoxe  was  fined  £5  for  "  laboring 
to  invegle  the  affection  of  Write  his  daughter."  In 
1672  Jonathan  Coventry,  of  Plymouth  town,  was  in- 
dicted for  "making  a  motion  of  marriage  "  to  Katha- 
rine Dudley  without  obtaining  formal  consent.     The 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  41 

sensible  reason  for  these  courtship  regulations  was 
"  to  prevent  young  folk  from  intangling  themselves 
by  rash  and  inconsiderate  contracts  of  maridge." 
The  Governor  of  Plymouth  colony,  Thomas  Prence, 
did  not  hesitate  to  drag  his  daughter's  love  affairs 
before  the  public,  in  1660,  by  prosecuting  Arthur 
Hubbard  for  "  disorderly  and  unrighteously  endeav- 
ouring to  gain  the  affections  of  Mistress  Elizabeth 
Prence."  The  unrighteous  lover  was  fined  X5. 
Seven  years  later,  patient  Arthur,  who  would  not 
"  refrain  and  desist,"  was  again  fined  the  same 
amount ;  but  love  prevailed  over  law,  and  he  tri- 
umphantly married  his  fair  Elizabeth  a  few  months 
later.  The  marriage  of  a  daughter  with  an  unwel- 
come swain  was  also  often  prohibited  by  will,  "  not  to 
suffer  her  to  be  circumvented  and  cast  away  upon  a 
swaggering  gentleman." 

On  the  other  hand,  an  engagement  of  marriage 
once  having  been  permitted,  the  father  could  not 
recklessly  or  unreasonably  interfere  to  break  off  the 
contract.  Many  court  records  prove  that  colonial 
lovers  promptly  resented  by  legal  action  any  at- 
tempt of  parents  to  bring  to  an  end  a  sanctioned  love 
affair.  Kichard  Taylor  st)  sued,  and  for  such  cause, 
Euth  Whieldon's  father  in  Plymouth  in  1661 ;  while 
another  ungallant  swain  is  said  to  have  sued  the 
maid's  father  for  the  loss  of  time  spent  in  courting. 
Breach  of  promise  cases  were  brought  against  women 
by  disappointed  men  who  had  been  '*  shabbed  "  (as 
jilting  was  called  in  some  parts  of  New  England),  as 
well  as  by  deserted  women  against  men.     ^  / 


42  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

But  sly  Puritan  maids  foimd  a  way  to  circumvent 
and  outwit  Puritan  law  makers,  and  to  prevent  their 
unsanctioned  lovers  from  being  punished,  too.  Hear 
the  craft  of  Sarah  Tuttle.  On  May  day  in  New 
Haven,  in  1660,  she  went  to  the  house  of  a  neigh- 
bor, Dame  Murline,  to  get  some  thread.  Some 
very  loud  jokes  were  exchanged  between  Sarah 
and  her  friends  Maria  and  Susan  Murline  —  so 
loud,  in  fact,  that  Dame  Murline  testified  in  court 
that  it  "  much  distressed  her  and  put  her  in  a  sore 
strait."  In  the  midst  of  all  this  doubtful  fun  Jacob 
Murline  entered,  and  seizing  Sarah's  gloves,  de- 
manded the  centuries  old  forfeit  of  a  kiss.  "Wlier- 
upon,"  writes  the  scandalized  Puritan  chronicler, 
"  they  sat  down  together ;  his  arm  being  about  her ; 
and  her  arm  upon  his  shoulder  or  about  his  neck ; 
and  hee  kissed  her,  and  shee  kissed  him,  or  they 
kissed  one  another,  continuing  in  this  posture  about 
half  an  hour,  as  Maria  and  Susan  testified."  Good- 
man Tuttle,  who  was  a  man  of  dignity  and  impor- 
tance, angrily  brought  suit  against  Jacob  for  inveigling 
his  daughter's  affections ;  "  but  Sarah  being  asked  in 
court  if  Jacob  inveagled  her,  said  No."  This  of  course 
prevented  any  rendering  of  judgment  against  the  un- 
authorized kissing  by  Jacob,  and  he  escaped  the 
severe  punishment  of  his  offence.  But  the  out- 
raged and  baffled  court  fined  Sarah,  and  gave  her  a 
severe  lecture,  calling  her  with  justice  a  "Bould 
Virgin."  She  at  the  end,  demurely  and  piously  an- 
swered that  "  She  hoped  God  would  help  her  to  carry 
it  Better  for  time  to  come."    And  doubtless  she  did 


OOUIITSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  43 

carry  it  better ;  for  at  the  end  of  two  years,  this 
bold  virgin's  fine  for  unitily  behavior  being  still  un- 
paid, half  of  it  was  remitted. 

Of  the  etiquette,  the  pleasures,  the  exigencies  of 
colonial  "  courtship  in  high  life,"  let  one  of  the  act- 
ors speak  for  himself  through  the  pages  of  his  diary. 
Judge  Sewall's  first  wife  was  Hannah  Hull,  the  only 
daughter  of  Captain  Hull  of  Pine  Tree  Shilling  fame. 
She  received  as  her  dowry  her  weight  in  silver  shil- 
lings. Of  her  wooing  we  know  naught  save  the 
charming  imaginary  story  told  us  by  Hawthorne. 
The  Judge's  only  record  is  this  : 

**  Mrs.  Hannah  Hull  saw  me  when  I  took  my  Degree 
and  set  her  affection  on  me  though  I  knew  nothing  of  it 
till  after  our  Marriage." 

She  lived  with  him  forty-three  years,  bore  him 
seven  sons  and  seven  daughters,  and  died  on  the  19th 
day  of  October,  1717. 

Of  course,  though  the  Judge  was  sixty-six  years 
old,  he  would  marry  again.  Like  a  true  Puritan  he 
despised  an  unmarried  life,  and  on  the  6th  day  of 
February  he  made  this  naive  entry  in  his  diary: 
"  Wandering  in  my  mind  whether  to  live  a  Married 
or  a  Single  Life."  Ere  that  date  he  had  begun  to  take 
notice.  He  had  called  more  than  once  on  Widow 
Euggles,  and  had  had  Widow  Gill  to  dine  with  him  ; 
had  looked  critically  at  Widow  Emery,  and  noted 
that  Widow  Tilley  was  absent  from  meeting ;  and  he 
had  gazed  admiringly  at  Widow  Winthrop  in  "  her 


44  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

sley,"  and  he  had  visited  and  counseled  and  consoled 
her  ere  his  wife  had  been  two  months  dead,  and  had 
given  her  a  few  suitable  tokens  of  his  awakening 
affection  such  as  "  Smoking  Flax  Inflamed,"  "  The 
Jewish  Children  of  Berlin,"  and  *'  My  Small  Vial  of 
Tears ; "  so  he  had  "  wandered  "  in  the  flesh  as  well 
as  in  the  mind. 

Such  an  array  of  widows !  Boston  fairly  blossomed 
with  widows,  the  widows  of  all  the  "  true  New  Eng- 
land men  "  whose  wills  Sewall  had  drawn  up,  whose 
dying  bedsides  he  had  blessed  and  harassed  with  his 
prayers,  whose  bodies  he  had  borne  to  the  grave, 
whose  funeral  gloves  and  scarves  and  rings  he  had 
received  and  apprized,  and  whose  estates  he  had 
settled.  Over  this  sombre  flower-bed  of  black 
garbed  widows,  these  hardy  perennials,  did  this  aged 
Puritan  butterfly  amorously  hover,  loth  to  settle, 
tasting  each  solemn  sweet,  calculating  the  richness  of 
the  soil  in  which  each  was  planted,  gauging  the 
golden  promise  of  fruit,  and  perhaps  longing  for  the 
whole  garden  of  full-blown  blossoms.  "Antient 
maides  "  were  held  in  little  esteem  by  him ;  not  one 
thornback  is  on  his  list. 

Not  only  did  he  look  and  wander,  but  all  his 
friends  and  neighbors  arose  and  began  to  suggest 
and  search  for  a  suitable  wife  for  him,  with  as  officious 
alacrity  as  if  he  needed  help,  which  he  certainly  did 
not.  In  March  Madam  Henchman  strongly  rec- 
ommended to  him  "  Madam  Winthrop,  the  Major 
General's  widow."  This  recommendation  was  very 
sweet  to  the  widower,  who  had  turned  his  eyes  with 


COURTSHIP   AND  MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  45 

such  special  approval  on   this   special  widow, .  and 
further  and  warm  encouragement  came  quickly. 

"Deacon  Marion  comes  to  me,  sits  with  me  a  great 
while  in  the  evening  ;  after  a  great  deal  of  Discourse 
about  his  Courtship  He  told  me  the  Olivers  said  they 
wish'd  I  would  court  their  Aunt.  I  said  little,  but  said 
'twas  not  five  Moneths  since  I  buried  my  dear  Wife. 
Had  said  before  'twas  hard  to  know  whether  to  marry 
again  or  no  or  whom  to  marry." 

The  Olivers'  aunt  was  Madam  Winthrop.  It  would 
seem  somewhat  presumptuous  and  officious  for 
nieces  and  nephews  to  suggest  courtship,  when  there 
were  grown  up  Winthrop  children  who  might  dislike 
the  marriage,  but  in  those  days  everyone  meddled 
in  love  affairs  ;  t*  quote  Pope  :  "  Marriage  was  the 
theme  on  which  they  all  declaimed."  The  Judge 
gossiped  publicly  about  his  intentions.  He  writes  : 
"  They  had  laid  one  out  for  me,  and  Governor  Dud- 
ley told  me  'twas  Madam  Winthrop.  I  told  him  I 
had  been  there  but  thrice  and  twice  upon  business. 
He  said  cave  tertium''  Even  solemn  Cotton  Mather 
proffered  counsel  in  a  letter  on  "  paying  regards  to 
the  Widow." 

In  spite  of  all  these  hints  and  commendations, 
and  the  Judge's  evident  pleasure  in  receiving  them, 
the  Winthrop  agitation  all  came  to  naught,  for  about 
this  time  he  was  called  to  make  a  will  for  a  Mr. 
Denison,  of  Eoxbury,  who  died  on  March  22d. 
Though  the  Judge  was  too  upright  and  too  pious  to 
let  even  his  thoughts  wander  to  a  wife,  the  amazing 


46  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

rapidity  with  which  he  turned  his  longing  eyes  on 
the  newly-made  widow  (cruelly  forsaking  Madam 
Winthrop)  is  only  equalled  by  the  act  of  the  famous 
Irish  lover  who  proposed  to  a  widow  at  the  open 
grave  of  her  husband. 

Judge  Sewall  went  home  with  widow  Denison  from 
her  husband's  funeral  and  "prayed  God  to  keep 
house  with  her."  The  very  next  day  he  writes,  "Mr. 
Danforth  gives  the  Widow  Denison  a  high  commenda- 
tion for  her  Piety,  Goodness,  Diligence  and  Humility." 
On  April  7th  she  came  to  the  widower  to  prove  her 
husband's  will ;  and  another  match-making  friend, 
Mr.  Dow,  "took  occasion  to  say  in  her  absence  that 
she  was  one  of  the  most  Dutiful  Wives  in  the  World." 
A  few  days  later  the  Judge  made  her  a  gift,  "  a 
Widow's  book  having  writ  her  name^in  it." 

At  last,  after  talking  the  matter  over  with  all  his 
friends,  he  decided  positively  to  go  a-courting. 
Widow  Denison  came  to  his  house  and  he  says  : 

"I  took  her  up  into  my  chamber  and  discoursed 
Thorowly  with  her :  told  her  I  intended  to  visit  her  next 
Lecture  Day.  She  said  'twould  be  talk'd  of,  I  answered : 
In  such  Cases  persons  must  run  the  Gantlet.  Gave  her 
an  Oration." 

He  visited  her  as  he  had  promised  and  gave  her 
"Dr.  Mathers  Sermons  neatly  bound  and  told  her  in 
it  we  were  invited  to  a  wedding.  She  gave  me  very 
good  Curds."  Other  love  gifts  followed :  "  K. 
Georges  Effigies  in  Copper  and  an  English  Crown  of 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  47 

K.  Charles  II.  1677."  "A  pound  of  Eeasons  and 
Proportionate  Almonds,"  "A  Psalmbook  elegantly 
bound  in  Turkey  leather,"  "  A  pair  of  Shoe  Buckles 
cost  five  shillings  three  pence."  "  Two  Cases  with  a 
knife  and  fork  in  each  ;  one  Turtle  Shell  Tackling ; 
the  other  long  with  Ivory  Handles  squar'd  cost  four 
shillings  sixpence." 

In  the  meantime  he  read  with  Cousin  Moodey  the 
history  of  Rebekah's  courtship,  and  then  prayed  over 
it,  and  over  his  OAvn  wooing.  Madam  Rogers  and 
Madam  Leverett  much  congratulated  him,  and  his 
daughter  Judith  visited  her  prospective  stepmother. 
But  alas !  the  lady  was  coy  and  averse  to  a  decision  f 

"  She  mentions  her  Discouragement  by  reason  of  Dis- 
course she  had  heard.  Ask't  what  I  should  allow  her, 
she  not  speaking  I  told  her  I  was  wilHng  to  allow  her  two 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  per  annum  if  it  should  please 
God  to  take  me  out  of  the  world  before  her.  She  an- 
swered she  had  better  keep  as  she  was  than  give  up  a 
certainty  for  an  uncertainty.  She  would  pay  dear  for 
her  living  in  Boston.  I  desired  her  to  make  Proposals 
but  she  made  none.  I  had  thought  of  Publishment  next 
Thursday.  But  I  now  seem  far  from  it.  My  God  who 
has  the  pity  of  a  Father  Direct  and  help  me." 

Mr.  Denison's  will  left  his  widow  a  portion  of  his 
estate  to  dispose  of  as  she  wished  if  she  did  not 
marry  again.  Judge  Sewall  was  unwilling  to  make 
equal  provision  for  her,  hence  the  stumbling  block 
in  their  courtship. 


48  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

After  consulting  with  a  friend,  the  Judge  made  a 
final  visit  to  her  on  November  28th. 

"  She  said  she  thought  it  was  hard  to  part  with  all  and 
having  nothing  to  bestow  on  her  Kindred.  I  had  ask'd 
her  to  give  me  proposals  in  Writing  and  she  upbraided 
me  That  I  who  had  never  written  her  a  Letter  should  ask 
her  to  write.  She  asked  me  if  I  would  drink,  I  told  her 
yes.  She  gave  me  Cider  Aples  and  a  Glass  of  Wine, 
gathered  together  the  little  things  I  had  given  her  and 
offered  them  to  me,  but  I  would  none  of  them.  Told 
her  I  wish'd  her  well  and  should  be  glad  of  her  welfare. 
She  seem'd  to  say  she  should  not  again  take  in  hand  a 
thing  of  this  nature.  Thank'd  me  for  what  I  had  given 
her  and  Desir'd  my  Prayers.  My  bowels  yern  towards 
Mrs.  Denison  but  I  think  God  directs  me  in  his  Provi- 
dence to  desist." 

This  love  affair  was  not,  however,  quite  ended,  for 
the  following  Lord's  Day  "  after  dark  "  Widow  Deni- 
son came  "  very  privat "  to  his  house.  This  Sunday- 
visit  betokened  great  anxiety  on  her  part.  She  had 
walked  in  from  Eoxbury  in  the  cold,  and  when  we  re- 
member how  wolves  and  bears  abounded  in  the  vicin- 
ity we  comprehend  still  further  her  solicitude. 

"  She  ask'd  pardon  if  she  had  affronted  me  ...  . 
Mr.  Denison  spake  to  her  after  signing  his  will  that  he 
would  not  make  her  put  all  out  of  her  Hand  and  power 
but  reserve  something  to  bestow  on  her  friends  that 
might  want  ....  I  could  not  observe  that  she 
made  me  any  offer  all  the  while.      She  mentioned  two 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  49 

Glass  Bottles  she  had.  I  told  her  they  were  hers  and 
the  other  small  things  I  had  given  her  only  now  they  had 
not  the  same  signification  as  before,  I  was  much  con- 
cerned for  her  being  in  the  cold,  would  fetch  her  a  plate 
of  something  warm  ;  she  refused.  However  I  fetched  a 
Tankard  of  Cider  and  drank  to  her.  She  desired  that 
nobody  might  know  of  her  being  here.  I  told  her  they 
should  not.  She  went  away  in  the  bitter  Cold,  no  moon 
being  up,  to  my  great  pain.     I  Saluted  her  at  Parting." 

With  that  parting  kiss  on  that  dark  cold  night,  in 
"  great  pain,"  ended  the  Judge's  second  wooing. 

That  he  was  sincerely  in  love  with  Widow  Denison 
one  cannot  doubt,  though  he  loved  his  money  more. 
Disappointed,  he  did  not  again  turn  to  courting  until 
the  following  August  —  much  longer  than  he  had 
waited  after  the  death  of  his  wife.  He  then  pro- 
ceeded in  a  matter-of-fact  way  to  visit  Widow  Tilley, 
whom  he  had  early  noted  in  meeting.  He  asked  her, 
at  his  third  visit,  to  "  come  and  live  in  his  house." 
"She  expressed  her  unworthiness  with  much  re- 
spect," and  both  agreed  to  consider  it.  He  gave  her 
a  little  book  called  "  Ornaments  of  Sion ; "  Mr.  Pem- 
berton  applauded  his  courtship ;  Mrs.  Amiitage  said 
that  Mrs.  Tilley  had  been  a  great  blessing  to  them  ; 
the  banns  were  published ;  and  the  Judge's  third 
wooing  ended  in  a  marriage  on  October  24th. 

But  the  bride  was  very  ill  on  her  wedding  night, 
and  after  several  slight  sicknesses  through  the  win- 
ter, died  on  May  20th,  to  her  husband's  "  great 
amazement."  Again  he  was  a-seeking  a  "  dear  Yoke 
4 


50  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

fellow,"  and  on  September  SOth,  "  Daughter  Sewall 
acquainted  Madam  Winthrop  that  if  she  pleased  to  be 
within  at  3  p.m.  I  would  wait  on  her."  This  was  the 
same  Madam  Winthrop  whose  attractions  had  been 
so  completely  obscured  by  the  bright  halo  which  en- 
circled the  much-longed-for  Widow  Denison. 

"Madam  Winthrop  returning  answer  that  she  would 
be  at  home,  I  went  to  her  house  and  spake  to  her  saying 
my  loving  wife  died  so  soon  and  suddenly  'twas  hardly 
convenient  for  me  to  think  of  Marrying  again,  however  I 
came  to  this  Resolution  that  I  would  not  make  my  Court 
to  any  person  without  first  consulting  with  her.  Had  a 
pleasant  Discourse  about  Seven  Single  persons  sitting  in 
the  Fore-Seat.  She  propounded  one  after  another  to  me 
but  none  would  do." 

Now,  I  think  the  Judge  was  very  graceful  in  ap- 
proaching a  proposal  to  this  widow,  for  on  his  next 
visit  he  asked  to  see  her  alone,  and  he  resumed  the 
pleasant  discourse  about  the  seven  widows  on  the 
fore  seat,  and  said : 

"  At  last  I  pray'd  Katharine  might  be  the  person  as- 
signed for  me.  She  evidently  took  it  up  in  the  way  of 
denyal  as  if  she  had  catched  at  an  opportunity  to  do  it, 
saying  she  could  not  do  it,  could  not  leave  her  children." 

The  Judge  begged  her  not  to  be  so  speedy  in 
decision,  and  brought  her  gifts,  "  pieces  of  Mr. 
Belchar's  cake  and  gingerbread  wrapped  in  a  clean 
sheet  of  paper;"  China  oranges;  the  News  Letter ; 
Preston's  "  Church  Marriage  ;  "  sugared  almonds  (of 
which  she  inquired  the  price).     He  wrote  her  a  stilted 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  51 

letter  with  an  allusion  in  it  to  Christoplier  Columbus, 
and  he  had  to  explain  it  to  her  afterward.  He  gave 
money  to  her  servants  and  "  penys  "  to  her  grand- 
children, and  heard  them  "  say  their  catechise  ;  "  and 
he  had  interviews  and  consultations  with  her  rela- 
tives— her  children,  her  sister — who  agreed  not  to 
oppose  the  marriage. 

Still  the  progress  of  the  courtship  was  not  encour- 
aging. Katharine  went  to  her  neighbors'  houses 
when  she  knew  her  suitor  was  coming  to  visit  her, 
and  left  him  to  read  "  Dr.  Sibbs  Bowels  "  for  scant 
comfort.  She  "look'd  dark  and  lowering"  at  him 
and  coldly  placed  tables  or  her  grandchild's  cradle 
between  her  chair  and  his  as  they  sat  together.  She 
avoided  seeing  him  alone.  She  "  let  the  fire  come  to 
one  short  Brand  beside  the  Block  and  fall  in  pieces 
and  make  no  recruit " — a  broad  hint  to  leave.  She 
"  would  not  help  him  on  with  his  coat  " — a  cutting 
blow.  She  would  not  let  her  servant  accompany 
him  home  with  a  lantern,  but  heartlessly  permitted 
her  elderly  lover  to  stumble  home  alone  in  the  dark. 
She  spoke  to  him  of  his  luckless  courtship  of  Widow 
Denison  (a  most  unpleasant  topic),  thus  giving  a  clue 
to  the  whole  situation,  in  showing  that  Madam  Win- 
throp  resented  his  desertion  of  her  in  his  first  widow- 
erhood,  and  like  Falstaff,  would  not  "  undergo  a  sneap 
without  reply."     He  said,  in  apologetic  answer: 

"  If  after  a  first  aud  second  Vagary  she  would  Accept 
of  me  returning  her  Victorious  Kindness  and  Good  Will 
would  be  very  ObHging." 


52  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Undeterred  by  these  many  rebuffs,  as  she  grew 
cold  he  waxed  warm,  and  a  most  lover-like  and  gal- 
lant scene  ensued  which  would  have  done  credit  to  a 
younger  man  than  the  Judge.  Here  it  is  in  his  own 
words  : 

*'  I  asked  her  to  Acquit  me  of  Rudeness  if  I  drew  off 
her  Glove.  Enquiring  the  reason  I  told  her  'twas  great 
odds  between  handling  a  dead  Goat  and  a  Living  Lady. 
Got  it  off  .  .  .  Told  her  the  reason  why  I  came  every 
other  night  was  lest  I  should  drink  too  Deep  draughts  of 
Pleasure.  She  had  talked  of  Canary,  her  Kisses  were 
to  me  better  than  the  best  Canary." 

Naturally  these  warm  words  had  a  marked  effect ; 
she  relaxed,  drank  a  glass  of  wine  with  him,  and  I  trust 
gave  him  a  Canary-sweet  kiss,  and  sent  a  servant 
home  with  him  with  a  lantern. 

The  next  visit  the  wind  blew  cold  again.  He  had 
had  one  experience  with  a  short-lived  wife,  and  he 
had  determined  that  should  his  next  wife  die  he 
would  still  have  some  positive  benefit  from  having 
married  her.  Hence  he  kept  pressing  Madam  "Win- 
throp  in  a  most  unpleasant  and  ghoulish  manner  to 
know  what  she  would  give  him  in  case  she  died.  He 
would  allow  her  but  one  hundred  pounds  per  annum. 
She  in  turn  persisted  in  questioning  him  about  the 
property  he  had  given  to  his  children ;  and  she 
wished  him  to  agree  to  keep  a  coach  (which  he  could 
well  afford  to  do),  and  she  wanted  it  set  on  springs  too. 
He  said  he  could  not  do  it  while  he  paid  his  debts. 
She  also  suggested  that  he  should  wear  a  wig.     This 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  53 

annoyed  him  beyond  measure,  for  he  hated  with  ex- 
treme Puritan  intenseness  those  "horrid  Bushes  of 
Vanity,"  and  the  suggestion  from  his  would-be  bride 
was  irritating  in  the  extreme.  He  answered  her  with 
much  self-control : 

*'  As  to  a  Periwigg  my  best  and  Greatest  Friend  begun 
to  find  me  with  Hair  before  I  was  born  and  has  continued 
to  do  so  ever  since  and  I  could  not  find  it  in  my  heart  to 
go  to  another." 

Still,  when  nearly  all  the  men  of  dignity  and  posi- 
tion in  the  colony  wore  imposing  stately  wigs,  no 
woman  would  be  pleased  to  have  a  lover  come  a-court- 
ing  in  a  liood. 

So,  though  she  gave  him  "  drams  of  Black  Cher- 
ry Brandy  "  and  Canary  to  drink  and  comfits  and 
lump  sugar  to  eat,  while  he  so  pressed  her  to  name 
her  settlement  on  him,  and  while  the  wig  and  coach 
questions  were  so  adversely  met,  she  would  not  an- 
swer yes,  and  he  regretted  making  more  haste  than 
good  speed.  At  last  the  lover  of  the  "  kisses  sweeter 
than  Canary  "  critically  notes  that  his  mistress  has 
not  on  **  Clean  Linen ;"  and  the  next  day  he  writes 
rather  sourly,  "  I  did  not  bid  her  draw  off  her  Glove 
as  sometime  I  had  done.  Her  dress  was  not  so 
clean  as  sometime  it  had  been ; "  the  beginning  of 
the  end  was  plainly  come.  That  week  he  forbade  her 
being  invited  to  a  family  dinner,  and  she  in  turn 
gave  a  "  treat  "  from  which  he  was  excluded.  Thus 
ended  his  fourth  wooing. 

The  next  widow  on  whom  he  called  was  Widow 


54  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Belknap,  but  eftsoons  he  transferred  his  attention  to 
Widow  Euggles  and  wrote  thus  sentimentally  to  her 
brother : 

"  I  remember  when  I  was  going  from  school  at  New- 
bury to  have  sometime  met  your  sisters  Martha  and 
Mary  in  Hanging  Sleeves  coming  home  from  their  school 
in  Chandlers  Lane,  and  have  had  the  pleasure  of  speaking 
to  them.  And  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  speak  to  Mrs. 
Martha  again,  now  I  myself  am  reduc'd  to  my  Hanging 
Sleeves.  The  truth  is,  I  have  little  occasion  for  a  Wife 
but  for  the  sake  of  Modesty,  and  to  lay  my  Weary  Head 
in  Her  Lap,  if  it  might  be  brought  to  pass  upon  Honest 
Conditions.  You  know  your  sisters  Age  and  Disposition 
and  Circumstances.  I  should  like  your  advice  in  my 
Fluctuations." 

The  Judge  called  on  Mrs.  Martha,  probably  af- 
ter learning  with  precision  her  circumstances.  "  I 
showed  my  willingness  to  renew  my  old  acquaintance. 
She  expressed  her  inability  to  be  serviceable."  Even 
after  the  Denison  and  Winthrop  fluctuations  he  was 
not  abashed  by  refusal,  and  he  must  have  been  (to 
quote  Mrs.  Peachum's  words)  "  a  bitter  bad  judge  'o 
women,"  for  he  called  again  and  again. 

"  She  seemed  resolved  not  to  move  out  of  the  house  ; 
made  some  Difficulties  to  accept  an  Election  Sermon  lest 
it  should  be  an  obhgation  to  her.  The  coach  staying 
long,  I  made  some  excuse  for  my  stay.  She  said  she 
would  be  glad  to  wait  on  me  till  midnight  provided  I 
should  soHcit  her  no  more  to  that  effect." 


COURTSHIP  AND  MAKPwIAGE  CUSTOMS  55 

This  decision  he  accepted. 

Poor  old  wife-seeking  Judge,  with  your  hanging 
sleeves,  your  broken  and  drooping  wings,  feebly  did 
you  still  flutter  around  for  a  resting-place  to  "lay 
your  Weary  Head  in  modesty."  You  fluctuated  to  a 
new  widow,  Madam  Harris,  and  she  gave  you  "  a 
nutmeg  as  it  grew,"  ever  a  true  lover's  gift  in  Shake- 
speare's day.  On  January  lltli,  1722,  this  letter  was 
sent  to  "  Mrs.  Mary  Gibbs,  widow,  at  Newton." 

"  Madam,  your  removal  out  of  town  and  the  Severity 
of  the  Weather  are  the  Reason  of  my  making  you  this 
Epistolary  Visit.  In  times  past  (as  I  remember)  you  were 
minded  that  I  should  marry  you  by  giving  you  to  your 
desirable  Bridegroom.  Some  sense  of  this  intended  Re- 
spect abides  with  me  still  and  puts  me  upon  enquiring 
whether  you  be  willing  I  should  marry  you  now  by  be- 
coming your  Husband.  Aged  feeble  and  exhausted  as  I 
am  your  favourable  Answer  to  this  Enquiry  in  a  few 
lines,  the  Candour  of  it  will  much  oblige.  Madam,  your 
humble  serv't  Samuel  Sewall." 

This  not-too-alluring  love-letter  brought  a  favorable 
answer,  for  the  Judge  assured  her  she  "  writ  incom- 
parably well,"  and  he  accompanied  this  praise  with  a 
suitable  and  useful  gift,  "  A  Quire  of  Paper,  a  good 
Leathern  Ink  Horn,  a  stick  of  Sealing  Wax  and  200 
Wafers  in  a  little  Box." 

He  was  even  sharper  in  bargaining  with  Widow 
Gibbs  than  he  had  been  with  other  matrimonial  can- 
didates.    She  had  no  property  to  leave  him  by  will, 


56  OLD  NEW   EN^GLAND 

but  he  astutely  stipulated  tliat  lier  cMldren  sign  a  con- 
tract that,  should  she  die  before  him,  they  would  pay 
him  XIOO.  She  thought  him  "  hard,"  and  so  did  her 
sons  and  her  son-in-law,  and  so  he  was — hard  even 
for  those  times  of  hard  bargains  and  hard  marriage 
contracts  in  hard  New  England.  He  would  agree  to 
give  her  but  £50  a  year  in  case  of  his  death.  The 
value  of  wives  had  depreciated  in  his  eyes  since  the 
X250  a  year  Widow  Denison.  His  gifts  too  were 
not  as  rich  as  those  bestowed  on  that  yearned-for 
widow.  He  had  seen  too  many  tokens  go  for  naught. 
Glazed  almonds,  Meers  cakes,  an  orange,  were  good 
enough  for  so  cheap  a  sweetheart.  He  remained  very 
stiff  and  peremptory  about  the  marriage  contract,  the 
£100,  and  wrote  her  one  very  unpleasant  letter  about 
it ;  and  he  feared  lest  she  being  so  attached  to  her 
children  might  not  be  tender  to  him  "  when  there 
soon  would  be  an  end  of  the  old  man."  At  last  she 
yielded  to  his  sharp  bargain  and  they  were  married. 
He  lived  eight  years,  so  I  doubt  not  Mary  was  ten- 
der to  him  and  mourned  him  when  he  died,  hard 
though  he  was  and  wigless  withal. 

We  gather  from  the  pages  of  Judge  Sewall's 
diary  many  hints  about  the  method  of  conducting 
other  courtships.  We  discover  the  Judge  craftily 
and  slyly  inquiring  whether  his  daughter  Mary's 
lover-apparent  had  previously  courted  another  Bos- 
ton maid  ;  we  see  him  conferring  with  lover  Gerrish's 
father ;  and  after  a  letter  from  the  latter  we  see  the 
lover  "at  Super  and  drank  to  Mary  in  the  third 
place."    He  called  again  when  it  was  too  cold  to  sit 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  67 

downstairs,  and  was  told  he  would  be  "  wellcomm  to 
come  Friday  night."     We  read  on  Saturday  : 

"  In  the  evening  Sam  Gerrish  comes  not ;  we  expected 
him  ;  Mary  dress'd  herself  ;  it  was  a  painfull  disgraceful! 
disapointment." 

A  month  later  the  recreant  lover  reappeared  and 
finally  married  poor  disappointed  Mary,  who  died 
very  complaisantly  in  a  short  time  and  left  him  free 
to  marry  his  first  love,  which  he  quickly  did.  We 
find  the  Judge  after  his  daughter's  death  higgling 
over  her  marriage  portion  with  Mr.  Gerrish,  Sr.,  and 
see  that  grief  for  her  did  not  prevent  him  from  show- 
ing as  much  shrewdness  in  that  matter  as  he  had  dis- 
played in  his  own  courtships. 

Timid  Betty  Sewall  was  as  much  harassed  in  love 
as  in  religion.  We  find  her  father,  when  she  was  but 
seventeen  years  old,  making  frequent  investigation 
about  the  estate  of  one  Captain  Tuthill,  a  prospect- 
ive suitor  who  had  visited  Betty  and  "wished  to 
speak  with  her."  The  Judge  had  his  hesitating 
daughter  read  aloud  to  him  of  the  mating  of  Adam 
and  Eve,  as  a  soothing  and  alluring  preparation  for 
the  thought  of  matrimony,  with,  however,  this  most 
unexpected  result : 

"  At  night  Capt.  Tuthill  comes  to  speak  with  Betty, 
who  hid  herself  all  alone  in  the  coach  for  several  hours 
till  he  was  gone,  so  that  we  sought  her  at  several 
houses,  till  at  last  came  in  of  herself  and  look'd  very 
wild." 


58  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

This  action  of  pure  maidenly  terror  elicited  sym- 
pathy even  in  the  Judge's  match-making  heart,  and 
he  told  the  lover  he  was  willing  to  know  his  daugh- 
ter's mind  better.  This  was  on  January  10th,  1698. 
Ten  days  later  we  find  wild-eyed  Betty  going  out  of 
her  way  to  avoid  drinking  wine  with  one  Captain 
Turner,  much  to  her  father's  annoyance.  By  Sep- 
tember she  had  refused  another  suitor. 

Her  father  wrote  thus : 

"Got  home  [from  Khode  Island]  by  seven,  in  good 
health,  though  the  day  was  hot,  find  my  family  in  health, 
only  disturbed  at  Betty's  denying  Mr.  Hirst,  and  my 
wife  hath  a  cold.  The  Lord  sanctify  Mercyes  and  Afflic- 
tions. " 

And  again,  a  month  later : 

"  Mr.  Wm.  Hirst  comes  and  thanks  my  wife  and  me  for 
our  kindness  to  his  Son,  in  giving  him  the  liberty  of  our 
house.  Seems  to  do  it  in  the  way  of  taking  leave.  I 
thank'd  him,  and  for  his  countenance  to  Hannah  at  the 
Wedding.  Told  him  that  the  well  wisher's  of  mj  daugh- 
ter and  his  son  had  persuaded  him  to  go  to  Brantry  and 
visit  her  there,  &c.;  and  said  if  there  were  hopes  would 
readily  do  it.  But  as  things  were  twould  make  persons 
think  he  was  so  involved  that  he  was  not  fit  to  go  any 
wether  else.  He  has  I  suppose  taken  his  final  leave.  I 
gave  him  Mr.  Oakes  Sermon,  and  my  Father  Hulls  Fun- 
eral Sermon." 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  59 

Two  days  later,  Judge  Sewall  writes  to  Betty,  who 
has  gone  to  "  Brantry  "  on  a  visit. 

Boston,  October  26,  1699. 

"  Elizabeth  :  Mr.  Hirst  waits  on  you  once  more  to  see  if 
you  can  bid  him  welcome.  It  ought  to  be  seriously  con- 
sidered, that  your  drawing  back  from  him  after  all  that 
has  passed  between  you,  will  be  to  your  Prejudice  ;  and 
will  tend  to  discourage  persons  of  worth  from  making 
their  Court  to  you.  And  you  had  need  well  consider 
whether  you  will  be  able  to  bear  his  final  leaving  of  you, 
howsoever  it  may  seem  grateful  to  you  at  present.  When 
persons  come  toward  us  we  are  apt  to  look  upon  their 
undesirable  Circumstances  mostly :  and  thereupon  to 
shun  them.  But  when  persons  retire  from  us  for  good 
and  all,  we  are  in  danger  of  looking  only  on  that  which  is 
desirable  in  them,  to  our  wofuU  disquiet.  Whereas  'tis 
the  property  of  a  good  Ballance  to  turn  where  the  most 
weight  is,  though  there  be  some  also  in  the  other  Scale. 
I  do  not  see  but  the  match  is  well  liked  by  judicious  per- 
sons, and  such  as  are  your  Cordial  friends,  and  mine  also. 

"  Yet  notwithstanding,  if  you  find  in  yourself  an  un- 
movable,  incurable  Aversion  from  him  and  cannot  love  and 
honor  and  obey  him,  I  shall  say  no  more,  nor  give  you 
any  further  trouble  in  this  matter.  It  had  better  off  than 
on.  So  praying  God  to  pardon  us  and  pitty  our  Undeserv- 
ing, and  to  direct  and  strengthen  and  settle  you  in  mak- 
ing a  right  judgment,  and  giving  a  right  Answer,  I  take 
leave,  who  am.  Dear  Child,  Your  loving  father. 

"  Your  mother  remembers  to  you.*' 

Even  this  very  proper  and  fatherly  advice  did  not 
have  an  immediate  effect  upon  the  shy  and  vacillat- 


60  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

ing  young  girl,  for  not  until  a  year  later  did  she  be- 
come the  wife  of  persistent  Grove  Hirst. 

One  of  the  most  typical  stories  of  colonial  methods 
of  "  matching  "  among  fine  gentlefolk  is  found  in  the 
worry  of  Emanuel  Downing,  a  man  of  dignity  in  the 
commonwealth,  and  of  his  wife,  Lucy  (who  was  Gov. 
Winthrop's  sister),  in  regard  to  the  settlement  of  their 
children.  Downing  begins  with  anxious  overtures  to 
Endicott  in  regard  to  "  matching  his  sonne  "  to  an 
orphan  maid  living  in  Endicott's  family,  a  maid  who 
it  is  needless  to  state  had  a  very  pretty  fortmie. 
Downing  states  that  he  has  been  blamed  for  not 
marrying  off  his  children  earlier,  "  that  none  are 
h  disposed  of,"  and  deplores  his  ill-luck  in  having  them 
jj  so  long  on  his  hands,  and  he  recounts  pathetically 
his  own  and  his  son's  good  points.  He  also  got 
Governor  Winthrop  to  write  to  Endicott  plead- 
ing the  match.  Endicott  answered  both  letters  in 
a  most  dignified  manner,  stating  his  objections  to 
furthering  Downing's  wishes,  giving  a  succession  of 
reasons,  such  as  the  maid's  unwillingness  to  marry, 
being  but  fifteen  years  of  age,  his  own  awkward 
position  in  seeming  to  crowd  marriage  upon  her 
when  she  was  so  rich,  etc.,  etc.  The  Downings  had 
hoped  to  have  thriftily  two  marriages  in  the  family 
in  one  day,  but  the  daughter  Luce's  affairs  also 
halted.  She  had  been  enamoured  of  a  Mr.  Eyer,  an 
unsuitable  match.  He  had  put  out  to  sea,  to  the 
Downings'  delight,  but  had  returned  at  an  unlucky 
time  when  she  was  on  with  a  fresh  suitor.  Her 
mother  was  much  distressed  because,  though  Luce 


COURTSHIP   AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  61 

declared  she  much  liked  Mr.  Norton,  she  still  showed 
to  all  around  her  that  "  she  hath  not  jet  forgotten 
Mr.  Eyer  his  fresh  Red." 

But  Mistress  Luce,  by  a  telling  statement  of  pecun- 
iary benefits,  was  brought  to  a  proper  mind  and 
became  "  verie  sensible  of  loseing  fair  opportunities," 
and  consented  speedily  to  wed  Norton,  to  her  father's 
abounding  joy,  who  wrote,  "  shee  may  stay  long  ere 
she  meet  with  a  better  vnless  I  had  more  monie  for 
her  than  I  now  can  spare."  The  betrothal  was 
formally  announced,  when  shortly  a  distressed  letter 
from  Madam  Downing  shows  foul  weather  ahead. 
Luce  had  been  talking  among  her  friends,  giving  to 
them  "  unjust  suspicions  of  the  enforcement  to  her  of 
Mr.  Norton,"  and  while  she  had  seemed  to  love  Mr. 
Eyer,  and  her  family  had  eagerly  striven  to  win  her 
regard  from  him,  "  we  now  suspect  by  her  late  words 
her  affections  to  be  now  inclininge  at  Jhon  Harrold." 
It  was  found  that  Jhon  had  "  practised  upon  her  and 
disturbed  her,"  and  that  while  she  was  "free  and 
cheerful "  with  Lover  Norton,  "  passing  conversation  " 
with  him,  she  was  really  conspiring  to  jilt  him.  The 
mother  wrote  sadly :  "  I  am  sorrie  my  daughter  Luce 
hath  caryed  things  thus  vnwisely  and  vnreputably 
both  to  herselfe  and  our  friends ; "  and  the  whole 
family  were  evidently  sorely  afraid  that  the  "  perverse 
Puritan  jade "  would  be  left  on  their  hands,  when 
suddenly  came  the  news  of  her  marriage  to  Norton, 
owing  perhaps  to  a  very  decided  and  sharp  letter 
from  Norton's  brother  to  the  Governor  about  Mistress 
Luce's  vagaries,  and  also  to  some  more  satisfactory 


62  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

and  liberal  marriage  settlements.  She  probably 
made  as  devoted  a  wife  to  him  as  if  she  had  never 
longed  for  Eyer  his  fresh  red,  nor  Jhon  his  disturb- 
ments. 

Nor  were  these  upright  and  pious  Puritan  magis- 
trates and  these  gentlewomen  of  Boston  and  Salem 
the  only  colonists  who  displayed  such  sordid  and 
mercenary  bargaining  and  stipulating  in  matrimonial 
ventures :  numberless  letters  and  records  throughout 
New  England  prove  the  unvarying  spirit  of  calcula- 
tion that  pervaded  fashionable  courtship.  A  bride's 
portion  was  openly  discussed,  her  marriage  settlement 
carefully  decided  upon,  and  even  agreements  for 
bequests  were  arranged  as  "  incurredgment  to  mar- 
riage." Nor  did  happy  husbands  hesitate  to  sue  for 
settlement  too  tardy  or  too  remiss  fathers-in-law  who 
failed  to  keep  their  word  about  the  bride's  portion  : 
Edward  Palmes  for  years  harassed  the  Winthrops 
about  their  sister's  (his  first  wife's)  portion,  long  after 
he  had  married  a  second  partner. 

Though  the  tender  passion  walked  thus  ceremoni- 
ously and  coldly  in  narrow  and  carefully  selected 
paths  in  town,  in  the  country  it  regarded  little  the 
bounds  of  reserve  or  regard  for  appearances.  Much 
comparative  grossness  prevailed.  The  mode  of 
courting,  known  as  "  bundling  "or  "  tarrying  "  was 
too  prevalent  in  colonial  times  to  be  ignored.  A  full 
description  of  its  extent,  and  an  attempt  to  trace  its 
origin,  have  been  given  in  a  book  on  the  subject  pre- 
pared by  Dr.  H.  E.  Stiles,  and  with  much  fairness  in 
a  pamphlet  by  Charles  Francis  Adams   on   "  Some 


COURTSHIP  AND  MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  63 

Phases  of  Sexual  Morality  and  Clmrcli  Discipline  in 
Colonial  New  England." 

Its  existence  lias  been  a  standing  taunt  for  years 
against  New  England,  and  its  prevalence  has  been 
held  up  as  a  proof  of  a  low  state  of  morality  in  early 
New  England  society.  Indeed,  it  was  strange  it  could 
so  long  exist  in  so  austere  and  virtuous  a  colony ; 
that  it  did,  to  a  startling  extent,  must  be  conceded ; 
much  proof  is  found  in  the  books  of  contemporary 
writers.  Rev.  Andrew  Bumaby,  who  travelled  in 
New  England  in  1759-1760,  says  that  though  it  may 
"at  first  appear  to  be  the  effects  of  grossness  of 
character,  it  will  upon  deeper  research  be  found 
to  proceed  from  simplicity  and  innocence."  To  this 
assertion,  after  some  research,  I  can  give — to  use 
Sir  Thomas  Browne's  words  —  "a  staggering  as- 
sent to  the  affirmative,  not  without  some  fear  of 
the  negative."  Rev.  Samuel  Peters,  in  his  Gen- 
eral History  of  Connecticut,  speaks  at  length  upon 
the  custom,  and  apparently  endeavors  to  prove 
that  it  was  a  very  prudent  and  Christian  fash- 
ion. Jonathan  Edwards  raised  his  powerful  voice 
against  it.  It  prevailed  apparently  to  its  fullest  ex- 
tent on  Cape  Cod,  and  longest  in  the  Connecticut 
valley,  where  many  Dutch  customs  were  introduced 
and  much  intercourse  with  the  Dutch  was  carried  on. 
In  Pennsylvania,  among  the  Dutch  and  German 
settlers  and  their  descendants,  it  lingered  long  ;  it  was 
a  matter  of  Court  record  as  late  as  1845.  Yet  the 
custom  of  bundling  has  never  been  held  to  be  a  result 
of  copying  the  similar  Dutch  "  queesting,"  which  in 


64  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Holland  met  with  tlie  sanction  of  the  most  circum- 
spect Dutch  parents ;  and  tergiversating  Diedrich 
Knickerbocker  even  asserted  the  contrary  assumption, 
that  the  Dutch  learned  of  it  from  the  Yankees.  In 
Holland,  as  now  in  Wales  and  then  in  New  England, 
the  custom  arose  not  from  a  low  state  of  morals,  nor 
from  a  disregard  of  moral  appearances,  but  from  the 
social  and  industrial  conditions  under  which  such 
courting  was  done.  The  small  size  and  crowded  oc- 
cupancy of  the  houses,  the  alternative  waste  of  lights 
and  fuel,  the  hours  at  which  the  hurried  courtship 
must  be  carried  on,  all  led  to  the  recognition  and 
endurance  of  the  custom  ;  and  in  its  open  recog- 
nition lay  its  redeeming  feature.  There  was  no  se- 
crecy, no  thought  of  concealment ;  the  bundling 
was  done  under  the  supervision  of  mother  and  sis- 
ters. 

As  a  contrast  to  all  this  laxity  of  behaviour,  let  me 
state  that  in  the  very  locality  where  it  obtained — the 
Connecticut  Valley — other  sweethearts  are  said  to 
have  been  forced  to  a  most  ceremonious  courtship,  to 
whisper  their  tender  nothings  through  a  "  courting- 
stick,"  a  hollow  stick  about  an  inch  in  diameter  and 
six  or  eight  feet  long,  fitted  with  mouth-  and  ear- 
pieces. In  the  presence  of  the  entire  family,  lovers, 
seated  formally  on  either  side  of  the  great  fireplace, 
carried  on  this  chilly  telephonic  love-making.  One  of 
these  batons  of  propriety  still  is  preserved  in  Long- 
meadow,  Mass. 

Of  this  primitive  colony  with  primitive  manners 
some  very  extraordinary  cases  of  bucolic  love  at  first 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  66 

sight  are  recorded — love  that  did  not  follow  the  law 
of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence.  At  an  ordination  in 
Hopkinton,  New  Hampshire,  a  country  bumpkin  for- 
got the  place,  the  preacher,  and  the  preaching,  in  the 
ravishing  sight  of  an  unknown  damsel  whom  he  saw 
for  the  first  time  within  the  meeting-house.  He  sat 
entranced  through  the  long  sermon,  the  tedious 
psalm-singings,  the  endless  prayers,  until  at  last  the 
services  were  over.  In  an  ecstasy  of  uncouth  and 
unreasoning  passion  he  rushed  out  of  chui'ch,  forced 
his  way  through  the  departing  congregation,  seized 
the  unknown  fair  one  in  his  arms  crying  out,  "  Now 
I  have  got  ye,  you  jade,  I  have !  I  have ! "  And 
from  so  startling  and  unalluring  a  beginning,  a  mar- 
riage followed.  In  a  neighboring  community  a  digni- 
fied officer  of  the  law  went  to  "  warn  out  of  town  " 
a  strange  "  transient  woman "  who  might  become 
a  pauper,  and  would  then  have  to  be  kept  at  the 
town's  expense,  were  this  ceremony  omitted.  Terri- 
fied at  the  majesty  of  the  law  and  its  grand  though 
incomprehensible  wording,  the  young  warned  one 
burst  into  tears,  which  so  worked  upon  the  ten- 
der-hearted officer  that  he  (being  conveniently  a 
widower)  proposed  to  her  offhand,  was  called  in 
meeting,  married  her,  and  thus  took  her  imder  his 
own  and  the  town's  protection.  More  than  one 
case  of  "  marriage  at  first  sight "  is  recounted,  of 
bold  Puritan  wooers  riding  up  to  the  door  of  a  fair 
one  whom  they  had  never  seen,  telling  their  story  of 
a  lonely  home,  forlorn  housekeeping,  and  desired  mar- 
riage, giving  their  credentials,  obtaining  a  hasty  con- 
5 


66  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

sent,  and  sending  in  their  "  publishings  "  to  the  town 
clerk,  all  within  a  day's  time. 

The  "  matrimonial "  advertisement  did  not  appear 
till  1759.  In  the  Boston  Evening  Post  of  February 
23d  of  that  year,  this  notice,  for  its  novelty  and  bold- 
ness, must  have  caused  quite  a  heart-fluttering  among 
Boston  "  thombacks  "  who  would  try  to  pass  for  the 
desired  age :      \       \^ 

"  To  the  Ladies. »  Any  young  Lady  between  the  Age  of 
Eighteen  and  twenty  three  of  a  MidUng  Stature  ;  brown 
Hair,  regular  Features  and  a  Lively  Brisk  Eye  :  Of  Good 
Morals  &  not  Tinctured  with  anything  that  may  Sully  so 
Distinguishable  a  Form  possessed  of  3  or  400£  entirely 
her  own  Disposal  and  where  there  will  be  no  necessity  of 
going  Through  the  tiresome  Talk  of  addressing  Parents  or 
Guardians  for  their  consent :  Such  a  one  by  leaving  a  Line 
directed  for  A.  W.  at  the  British  Coffee  House  in  King 
Street  appointing  where  an  Interview  may  be  had  will  meet 
■yvith  a  Person  who  flatters  himself  he  shall  not  be  thought 
t)isagreeable  by  any  Lady  answering  the  above  descrip- 
tion.    N.  B.      Profound   Secrecy  will  be  observ'd.     No 


r 


ifling  Answers  will  be  regarded." 


Hawthorne  says :  "  Now  this  was  great  condescen- 
sion towards  the  ladies  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  a 
threadbare  lieutenant  of  foot." 

Other  matrimonial  advertisements,  those  of  rec- 
reant and  disobedient  wives,  appear  in  considerable 
number,  especially  in  Connecticut  papers.  They 
were  sometimes  prefaced  by  the  solemn  warning : 
"  Cursed  be  he  that  parteth  man  &  wife  &  all  the 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  67 

people  shall  say  Amen."  Some  very  disagreeable 
allegations  were  made  against  these  Connecticut 
wives — that  they  were  rude,  gay,  light-carriaged 
girls,  poor  and  lazy  housewives,  ill  cooks,  fond  of 
dancing,  and  talking  balderdash  talk,  and  far  from 
being  loving  consorts.  The  wives  had  something  to 
say  from  their  point  of  view.  One,  owing  to  her 
spouse's  stinginess,  had  to  use  "  Indian  branne  for 
Jonne  bred,"  and  never  tasted  good  food ;  another 
stated  that  her  loving  husband  "  cruelly  pulled  my 
hair,  pinched  my  flesh,  kicked  me  out  of  bed,  drag'd 
me  by  my  arms  &  heels,  flung  ashes  upon  me  to 
smother  me,  flung  water  from  the  well  till  I  had  not 
a  dry  thread  on  me."  All  these  notices  were  appar- 
ently printed  in  the  advertiser's  own  language  and 
individual  manner  of  spelling,  some  even  in  rhyme. 
"Timothy  hubbard"  thus  ventilated  his  domestic 
infelicities  and  his  spelling  in  the  Connecticut  Courant 
of  January  30th,  1776  : 

"Whearis  my  Wife  Abigiel  lies  under  Kote  me  by 
saying  it  is  veri  Disagria  bell  to  Hur  to  Expose  to  the 
World  the  miseris  &  Calamatis  of  a  Distractid  famely, 
and  I  think  as  much  for  hur  Father  &  mother  to  Witt 
Stephen  deming  &  his  wife  acts  very  much  like  Dis- 
tractid or  BeWicht  &  I  believe  both,  for  the  truth  of  this 
I  will  apell  to  the  Nabors.  When  I  first  Married  I  had 
land  of  my  one  and  lived  at  my  one  hous  but  Stephen 
deming  &  his  Wife  cept  coming  down  &  hanting  of  me 
til  they  got  me  up  to  thare  house  but  presently  I  was 
deceived  by  them  as  Bad  as  Adam  &  Eve  was  by  the 
Divel  though  not  in  the  Same  Shape  for  they  got  a  bill  of 


68  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Sail  of  a  most  all  by  tliare  Sutilly  &  still  hold  the  Same, 
perhaps  the  Jentlemen  will  say  it  is  to  pay  my  debt. 
Queri.  Wherino  a  man  that  ows  one  pound  to  my 
shiling.  I  dont  want  it  to  pay  his  one,  I  believe  he  dos. 
My  wife  pretends  to  say  I  abiis'd  her  for  the  truth  of 
this  I  will  apiel  to  all  thare  nabors." 

Anenst  this  I  am  glad  to  add  that  I  have  found 
repentant  sequels  to  the  mortifying  story,  in  the  form 
of  humble  retractions  of  the  husband's  allegations. 
Wives  were,  on  the  whole,  marvellously  well  pro- 
tected by  early  laws.  A  husband  could  not  keep  his 
consort  on  outlying  and  danger-filled  plantations, 
but  must  "  bring  her  in,  else  the  town  will  pull  his 
house  down."  Nor  could  a  man  leave  his  wife  for 
any  length  of  time,  nor  "  marrie  too  wifes  which  were 
both  alive  for  anything  that  can  appear  otherwise  at 
one  time,"  nor  beat  his  wife  (as  he  could  to  his 
heart's  content  in  old  England) ;  he  could  not  even 
use  "  hard  words  "  to  her.  Nor  could  she  raise  her 
hand  or  use  "  a  curst  and  shrewdsh  tongue  "  to  him 
without  fear  of  public  punishment  in  the  stocks  or 
pillory. 

In  the  fii-st  years  of  the  colonies  there  existed  a 
formal  ceremony  of  betrothal  called  in  Plymouth  a 
pre  -  contract.  This  semi  -  binding  ceremony  had 
hardly  a  favorable  influence  upon  the  morals  of  the 
times.     Cotton  Mather  states  : 

"  There  was  maintained  a  Solemnity  called  a  Contrac- 
tion a  little  before  the  Consummation  of  a  marriage  was 
allowed  of.  A  Pastor  was  usually  employed  and  a  sermon 
also  preached  on  this  occasion." 


COURTSHIP  AND   MAllRIAGE   CUSTOMS  69 

If  the  prospective  marriage  were  an  important  or 
a  genteel  one,  an  applicable  sermon  was  often 
preached  in  church  at  the  time  of  the  "  contraction." 
One  minister  took  the  text,  Ephesians  vi.  10,  11,  in 
order  "  to  teach  that  marriage  is  a  state  of  warfaring 
condition."  It  was  also  the  custom  to  allow  the  bride 
=^to  choose  the  text  for  the  sermon  to  be  delivered  on 
the  Sunday  when  she  "  came  out  bride."  Much  in- 
genuity was  exercised  by  these  Puritan  brides  in  find- 
ing appropriate  and  interesting  texts  for  these  wed- 
ding sermons.    Here  are  some  of  the  verses  selected : 

2  Chronicles  xiv.  2  :  "  And  Asa  did  that  which 
was  good  and  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  " — Asa 
and  his  bride  Hepzibah  sitting  up  proudly  in  the 
congregation  to  listen. 

Proverbs  xxiv.  23  :  "  Her  husband  is  known  in  the 
gates  when  he  sitteth  among  the  elders  of  the  land." 

Ecclesiastes  iv.  9,  10  :  **  Two  are  better  than  one ; 
'  because  they  have  a  good  reward  for  their  labour. 
For  if  they  fall  the  one  will  lift  up  his  fellow." 

I  can  imagine  the  staid  New  England  lover  and  his 
shy  sweetheart  anxiously  and  solemnly  searching  for 
many  hours  through  the  great  leather-bound  family 
Bible  for  a  specially  appropriate  text,  turning  over 
the  leaves  and  slowing  scanning  the  pages,  skipping 
over  tedious  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  and  finding  al- 
ways in  the  Song  of  Solomon  "  in  almost  every  verse  " 
a  sentiment  appealing  to  all  lovers,  and  worthy  a  se- 
lection for  a  wedding  sermon. 

The  "  coming  out,"  or,  as  it  was  called  in  Newbury- 
port,  *'  walking  out "  of  the  bride  was  an  important 


70  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

event  in  the  little  community.  Cotton  Mather  wrote 
in  1713  that  he  thought  it  expedient  for  the  bridal 
couple  to  appear  as  such  publicly,  with  some  dignity. 
We  see  in  the  pages  of  Sewall's  diary  one  of  his 
daughters  with  her  new-made  husband  leading  the 
orderly  bridal  procession  of  six  couples  on  the  way 
to  church,  observed  of  all  in  the  narrow  Boston  street 
and  in  the  Puritan  meeting-house.  In  some  communi- 
ties the  bride  and  groom  took  a  prominent  seat  in 
the  gallery,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  sermon  rose  to 
their  feet  and  turned  around  several  times  slowly,  in 
order  to  show  from  every  point  of  view  their  bridal 
finery  to  the  admiring  eyes  of  their  assembled  friends 
and  neighbors  in  the  congregation. 

Throughout  New  England,  except  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, the  law  was  enforced  for  nearly  two  centuries, 
of  publishing  the  wedding  banns  three  times  in  the 
meeting-house,  at  either  town  meeting,  lecture,  or 
Sunday  service.  Intention  of  marriage  and  the 
names  of  the  contracting  parties  were  read  by 
the  town  clerk,  the  deacon,  or  the  minister,  at 
any  of  these  forgatherings,  and  a  notice  of  the 
same  placed  on  the  church  door,  or  on  a  "  publish- 
ing post " — in  short,  they  were  "  vailed."  Yet  in 
the  early  days  of  the  colonies  the  all-powerful 
minister  could  not  perform  the  marriage  ceremony — 
a  magistrate,  a  captain,  any  man  of  dignity  in  the 
community  could  be  authorized  to  marry  Puritan 
lovers,  save  the  parson.  Not  till  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century  did  the  Puritan  minister  assume 
the  function  of  solemnizing  marriages.      Gov.  Bel- 


COURTSHIP   AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  71 

lingliam  married  himself  to  Penelope  Pelham  when 
he  was  a  short  time  a  widower  and  forty-nine  years 
old,  and  his  bride  but  twenty-two.  When  he  was 
"  brought  np  "  for  this  irregularity  he  arrogantly  and 
monopolizingly  persisted  in  remaining  on  the  bench 
to  try  his  own  case.  "  Disorderly  marriages 
were  punished  in  many  towns ;  doubtless  many  of 
them  were  between  Quakers.  Some  couples  were 
fined  every  month  until  they  were  properly  mar- 
ried. A  very  trying  and  unregenerate  reprobate  in 
New  London  persisted  that  he  would  "  take  up  "  with 
a  -woman  in  the  town  and  make  her  his  wife  without 
any  legal  or  religious  ceremony.  This  was  a  great 
scandal  to  the  whole  community.  A  pious  magistrate 
met  the  ungodly  couple  on  the  street  and  sternly 
reproved  them  thus  :  "  John  Eogers,  do  you  persist 
in  calling  this  woman,  a  servant,  so  much  younger 
than  yourself,  your  wife  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,"  violently  answered  John. 

"  And  do  you,  Mary,  wish  such  an  old  man  as  this 
to  be  your  husband  ?  " 

*'  Indeed  I  do,"  she  answered. 

"  Then,"  said  the  governor,  coldly,  "  by  the  law^s  of 
God  and  this  commonwealth,  I  as  a  magistrate  pro- 
nounce you  man  and  wife." 

"  Ah !  Gurdon,  Gurdon,"  said  the  groom,  married 
legally  in  spite  of  himself,  "  thee's  a  cunning  fellow." 

There  is  one  peculiarity  of  the  marriages  of  the 
first  century  and  a  half  of  colonial  and  provincial  life 
which  should  be  noted — the  vast  number  of  unions 
between  the  members  of  the  families  of  Puritan  min- 


72  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

isters.  It  seemed  to  be  a  law  of  social  ethics  that 
the  sons  of  ministers  should  marry  the  daughters  of 
ministers.  The  new  pastor  frequently  married  the 
the  daughter  of  his  predecessor  in  the  parish,  some- 
times the  widow — a  most  thrifty  settling  of  pastoral 
affairs.  A  study  of  the  Cotton,  Stoddard,  Eliot,  Will- 
iams, Edwards,  Chauncey,  Bulkeley,  and  Wiggles  worth 
families,  and,  above  all,  of  the  Mather  family,  will 
show  mutual  kinship  among  the  ministers,  as  well  as 
mutual  religious  thought. 

Richard  Mather  took  for  his  second  wife  the  widow 
of  John  Cotton.  Their  children.  Increase  Mather  and 
Mary  Cotton,  grew  up  as  brother  and  sister,  but  were 
married  and  became  the  parents  of  Cotton  Mather. 
^   The  sons  and  grandsons  and  great-grandsons  of  Rich- 
1  ard  Mather  were  ministers.     His  daughters,  grand- 
1  daughters,    and    great-granddaughters    became    the 
1  wives  of  ministers.     Thus  was  the  name  of  '*  Mather 
1  Dynasty  "  well  given.     The  Mather  blood  and  the 
IMather  traits  of  character  were  felt  in  the  most  re- 
Imote  parishes  of  New  England.      The   Mather  ex- 
pressions of  religious  thought  were  long  heard  from 
|ihe  pulpit,  and  long  taught   in  ministerial  homes; 
iind  to  that  Mather  blood  and  that  upright  Mather 

tharacter  and  God-fearing  Mather  faith  and  teaching, 
7e  of  New  England  owe  more  gratitude  than  can 
ever  find  expression. 

We  have  several  meagre  pictures  of  weddings  in 
early  days.     One  runs  thus  : 

"  Tliere  was  a  pretty  deal  of  company  present  .  .  .  Many 
young  gentlemen  and  gentlewomen.     Mr.  Noyes  made  a 


COUllTSHIP   AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  73 

speech,  said  love  was  the  sugar  to  sweeten  every  condition 
in  the  marriage  state.  Prayed  once.  Did  all  very  welL 
After  the  Sack-posset  suiig  4:5th  Psalm  from  8th  verse  to 
end,  five  staves.  I  set  it  to  Windsor  tune.  I  had  a  very 
good  Turkey  Leather  Psalm  book  which  I  looked  in 
while  Mr.  Noyes  read  ;  then  I  gave  it  to  the  bridegroom 
saying  I  give  you  this  Psalm  book  in  order  to  your  per- 
petuating this  song  and  I  would  have  you  pray  that  it 
may  be  an  introduction  to  our  singing  with  the  quire 
above." 

For  many  years  sack-posset  was  drunk  at  weddings, 
sometimes  within  the  bridal  chamber ;  but  not  with 
noisy  revelry,  as  in  old  England.  A  psalm  preceding 
and  a  prayer  following  a  Puritan  posset-pot  made  a 
satisfactorily  solemn  wassail.  Bride-cake  and  bride- 
gloves  were  sent  as  gifts  to  the  friends  and  relatives 
of  the  contracting  parties.  Other  and  ruder  English 
fashions  obtained.  The  garter  of  the  bride  was  some- 
times scrambled  for  to  bring  luck  and  speedy  mar- 
riage to  the  garter- winner.  In  Marblehead  the  brides- 
maids and  groomsmen  put  the  wedded  couple  to  bed. 

It  is  said  that  along  the  New  Hampshire  and  upper 
Massachusetts  coast,  the  groom  was  led  to  the  bridal 
chamber  clad  in  a  brocaded  night-gown.  This  may 
have  occasionally  taken  place  among  the  gentry,  but 
I  fancy  brocaded  night-gowns  were  not  common  w^ear 
among  New  England  country  folk.  I  have  also  seen 
it  stated  that  the  bridal  chamber  was  invaded,  and 
healths  there  were  drunk  and  prayers  offered.  The 
only  proof  of  this  custom  which  I  have  found  is  the 
negative  one  which  Judge  Sewall  gives  when  he  states 


74  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

of  his  own  wedding  that  "  none  came  to  us,"  after  he 
and  his  elderly  bride  had  retired.  When  the  weddings 
of  English  noblemen  of  that  period  were  attended 

\  /by  most  iiidecorous  observances,  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  provincial  and  colonial  weddings 
were  entirely  free  from  similar  rude  customs. 

It  was  found  necessary  in  1651  to  forbid  all  "mixt 
and  unmixt "  dancing  at  taverns  on  the  occasion  of 
weddings,  abuses  and  disorders  having  arisen.  But 
I  fancy  a  people  who  would  give  an  "  ordination  ball " 
would  not  long  sit  still  at  a  wedding ;  and  by  the  year 
1769,  at  a  wedding  in  New  London,  ninety-two  jigs, 
fifty  contra-dances,  forty-three  minuets,  and  seven- 
teen hornpipes  were  danced,  and  the  party  broke  up 
at  quarter  of  one  in  the  morning — at  what  time  could 
it  have  begun  ? 

Isolated  communities  retained  for  many  years  mar- 
riage customs  derived  or  copied  from  similar  customs 
in.  the  "  old  country."     Thus  the  settlers  of  London- 
derry, New  Hampshire — Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians — 
/     celebrated  a  marriage  with  much  noisy  firing  of  guns, 

/  just  as  their  ancestors  in  Ireland,  when  the  Catholics 
had  been  forbidden  the  use  of  firearms,  had  ostenta- 
tiously paraded  their  privileged  Protestant  condition 
by  firing  off  their  guns  and  muskets  at  every  celebra- 
tion. A  Londonderry  wedding  made  a  big  noise  in 
the  world.  After  the  formal  publishing  of  the  banns, 
guests  were  invited  with  much  punctiliousness.  The 
wedding  day  was  suitably  welcomed  at  daybreak  by 
a  discharge  of  musketry  at  both  the  bride's  and  the 
groom's  house.      At  a  given   hour  the  bridegroom, 


COURTSHIP   A^D   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  75 

accompanied  by  his  male  friends,  started  for  the 
bride's  home.  Salutes  were  fired  at  every  house 
passed  on  the  road,  and  from  each  house  pistols  and 
guns  gave  an  answering  "  God  speed."  Half  way  on 
the  journey  the  noisy  bridal  party  was  met  by  the  male 
friends  of  the  bride,  and  another  discharge  of  firearms 
rent  the  air.  Each  group  of  men  then  named  a 
champion  to  "  run  for  the  bottle  " — a  direct  survival 
of  the  ancient  wedding  sport  known  among  the 
Scotch  as  "  running  for  the  bride-door,"  or  "  riding 
for  the  kail "  or  "  for  the  broose  " — a  pot  of  spiced 
broth.  The  two  New  Hampshire  champions  ran  at 
full  speed  or  rode  a  dare-devil  race  over  dangerous 
roads  to  the  bride's  house,  the  winner  seized  the 
beribboned  bottle  of  rum  provided  for  the  contest, 
returned  to  the  advancing  bridal  group,  drank  the 
bride's  health,  and  passed  the  bottle.  On  reaching 
the  bride's  house  an  extra  salute  was  fired,  and  the 
bridegroom  with  his  party  entered  a  room  set  aside 
for  them.  It  was  a  matter  of  strict  etiquette  that 
none  of  the  bride's  friends  should  enter  this  room  un- 
til the  bride,  led  by  the  best  man,  advanced  and  sta- 
tioned herself  with  her  bridesmaid  before  the  minis- 
ter, while  the  best  man  stood  behind  the  groom. 
When  the  time  arrived  for  the  marrying  pair  to  join 
hands,  each  put  the  right  hand  behind  the  back,  and 
the  bridesmaid  and  the  best  man  pulled  off  the  wed- 
ding-gloves, taking  care  to  finish  their  duty  at  pre- 
cisely the  same  moment.  At  the  end  of  the  ceremony 
everyone  kissed  the  bride,  and  more  noisy  firing  of 
guns  and  drinking  of  New  England  rum  ended  the  day. 


76  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

In  some  communities  still  rougher  liorse-play  tlian 
unexpected  volleys  of  musketry  was  shown  to  the 
bridal  party  or  to  wedding  guests.  Great  trees  were 
felled  across  the  bridle-paths,  or  grapevines  were 
stretched  across  to  hinder  the  free  passage,  and  thus 
delay  the  bridal  festivities. 

Occasionally  the  wedding-bells  did  not  ring 
smoothly.  One  Scotch-Irish  lassie  seized  the  con- 
venient opportunity,  when  the  rollicking  company  of 
her  male  friends  had  set  out  to  meet  the  bridegroom, 
to  mount  a-pillion  behind  a  young  New  Hampshire 
Lochinvar,  and  ride  boldly  off  to  a  neighboring 
parson  and  marry  the  man  of  her  choice.  Such  an 
unpublished  marriage  was  known  in  New  HamiDshire 
as  a  "  riagg  marriage,"  from  one  Parson  Flagg,  of 
some  notoriety,  of  Chester,  Vermont,  whose  house 
was  a  sort  of  Yankee  Gretna  Green ;  and  such  a 
mamage  was  made  possible  by  the  action  of  the 
government  of  Ncav  Hampshire  in  issuing  md-r- 
riage  licenses  at  the  price  of  two  guineas  each,  as 
a  means  of  increasing  its  income.  Sometimes  easy- 
going parsons  kept  a  stock  of  these  licenses  on  hand, 
ready  for  issue  to  eloping  couples  at  a  slightly 
advanced  price.  Such  a  marriage,  without  proper 
''  publishing  "  in  meeting,  was  not,  however,  deemed 
very  reputable. 

Madam  Knight,  travelling  through  Connecticut  in 
1704,  wrote  thus  in  her  diary  of  Connecticut  youth  : 

"  They  generally  marry  very  young  ;  the  males  oftener 
as  I  am  told  under  twenty  years  than  above  ;  they  gener- 


COURTSHIP  AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  77 

ally  make  public  weddings  and  have  a  way  something 
singular  in  some  of  them  ;  viz.  just  before  joining  hands 
the  bridegroom  quits  the  place,  who  is  soon  followed  by 
the  Bridesmen  and,  as  it  were,  dragged  back  to  duty, 
being  the  reverse  to  the  former  practice  among  us  to 
steal  Mistress  Bride." 

Poor-spirited  creatures  Connecticut  maids  must 
have  been  to  endure  meekly  such  an  ungallant  cus- 
tom and  such  ungallant  lovers. 

The  sport  of  stealing  "  Mistress  Bride,"  a  curious 
survival  of  the  old  savage  bridals  of  many  peoples, 
lingered  long  in  the  Connecticut  valley.  A  company 
of  young  men,  usually  composed  of  slighted  ones 
who  had  not  been  invited  to  the  w^edding,  rushed 
in  after  the  marriage  ceremony,  .seized  the  bride, 
carried  her  to  a  waiting  carriage,  or  lifted  her  up  on 
a  pillion,  and  rode  to  the  country  tavern.  The 
groom  with  his  friends  followed,  and  usually  re- 
deemed the  bride  by  furnishing  a  supper  to  the 
stealers.  The  last  bride  stolen  in  Hadley  was  Mrs. 
Job  Marsh,  in  the  year  1783.  To  this  day,  however, 
in  certain  localities  in  Ehode  Island,  the  young  men 
of  the  neighborhood  invade  the  bridal  chamber  and 
pull  the  bride  downstairs,  and  even  out-of-doors,  thus 
forcing  the  husband  to  follow  to  her  rescue.  If  the 
room  or  house-door  be  locked  against  their  invasion, 
the  rough  visitors  break  the  lock. 

In  England  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  the 
grotesque  belief  prevailed  that  if  a  widow  were 
"  married  in   Her   Smock  without    any   Clothes  or 


78  OLD  NJSW  ENGLAND 

Head  Gier  on,"  the  husband  would  be  exempt  from 
paying  any  of  his  new  wife's  ante-nuptial  debts  ;  and 
many  records  of  such  debt-evading  marriages  appear. 
In  New  England,  it  was  thought  if  the  bride  were 
married  "in  her  shift  on  the  king's  highway,"  a 
creditor  could  follow  her  person  no  farther  in  pur- 
suit of  his  debt.  Many  such  eccentric  '*  smock- 
marriages  "  took  place,  generally  (with  some  regard 
for  modesty)  occurring  in  the  evening.  Later  the 
bride  was  permitted  to  stand  in  a  closet. 

Mr.  "William  C.  Prime,  in  his  delightful  book, 
"  Along  New  England  Eoads,"  gives  an  account  of 
such  a  marriage.  In  Newfane,  Vt.,  in  February, 
1789,  Major  Moses  Joy  married  "Widow  Hannah 
Ward ;  the  bride  stood,  with  no  clothing  on,  within  a 
closet,  and  held  out  her  hand  to  the  major  through  a 
diamond-shaped  hole  in  the  door,  and  the  ceremony 
was  thus  performed.  She  then  appeared  resplendent 
in  wedding  attire,  which  the  gallant  major  had 
thoughtfully  deposited  in  the  closet  for  her  assump- 
tion. Mr.  Prime  tells  also  of  a  marriage  in  which 
the  bride,  entirel}^  unclad,  left  her  room  by  a  window 
at  night,  and  standing  on  the  top  round  of  a  high 
ladder  donned  her  wedding  garments,  and  thus  put 
off  the  obligations  of  the  old  life. 

In  Hall's  "  History  of  Eastern  Vermont,"  we  read  of 
a  marriage  in  Westminster,  Yt.,  in  which  the  AVidow 
Lovejoy,  while  nude  and  hidden  in  a  chimney  recess 
behind  a  curtain,  wedded  Asa  Averill.  Smock- 
marriages  on  the  public  highway  are  recorded  in 
York,  Me.,   in   1774,  as   shown    in  the  History    of 


COURTSHIP   AND   MARRIAGE  CUSTOMS  79 

Wells  and  Kennebunkport.  It  is  said  that  in  one 
case  the  pitying  minister  threw  his  coat  over  the 
shivering  bride,  Widow  Mary  Bradley,  who  in 
February,  clad  only  in  a  shift,  met  the  bridegroom 
half  way  from  her  home  to  his. 

The  traveller  Kalm,  writing  in  1748,  says  that 
one  Pennsylvania  bridegroom  saved  appearances  by 
meeting  the  scantily-clad  widow-bride  half  way  from 
her  house  to  his,  and  announcing  formally,  in  the 
presence  of  witnesses,  that  the  wedding  clothes  which 
he  then  put  on  her  were  only  lent  to  her  for  the 
occasion.  This  is  curiously  suggestive  of  the  mar- 
riage investiture  of  Eastern  Hindostan. 

In  Westerly,  K.  I.,  in  1724,  other  smock-marriages 
were  recorded,  and  in  Lincoln  County,  Me.,  in 
1767,  between  John  Gatchell  and  Sarah  Cloutman, 
showing  that  the  belief  in  this  vulgar  error  was  wide- 
spread. The  most  curious  variation  of  this  custom  is 
told  in  the  "Life  of  Gustavus  Vassa,"  wherein  that 
traveller  records  that  a  smock-marriage  took  place  in 
New  York  in  1784  on  a  gallows.  A  malefactor  con- 
demned to  death,  and  about  to  undergo  his  execution, 
was  reprieved  and  liberated  through  his  marriage  to 
a  woman  clad  only  in  a  shift. 

In  spite  of  the  hardness  and  narrowness  of  their 
daily  life,  and  the  cold  calculation,  the  lack  of  senti- 
ment displayed  in  wooing,  I  think  Puritan  husbands 
and  wives  were  happy  in  their  marriages,  though 
their  love  was  shy,  almost  sombre,  and  "  flowered  out 
of  sight  like  the  fern."  A  few  love-letters  still  remain 
to  prove  their  affection :  letters  of  sweethearts  and 


80  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

letters  of  married  lovers,  such  as  Governor  Winthrop 
and  his  wife  Margaret ;  letters  like  the  words  of  an- 
other Margaret — a  queen — to  her  "  alderliefest ; "  let- 
ters so  simple  and  tender  that  truth  and  love  shine 
round  them  like  a  halo  : 

*'  My  own  dear  Husband  :  How  dearly  welcome  thy  kind 
letter  was  to  me,  I  am  not  able  to  express.  The  sweet- 
ness of  it  did  much  refresh  me.  What  can  be  more 
pleasing  to  a  wife  than  to  hear  of  the  welfare  of  her  best 
beloved  and  how  he  is  pleased  with  her  poor  endeavors ! 
I  blush  to  hear  myself  commended,  knowing  my  own 
wants.  But  it  is  your  love  that  conceives  the  best  and 
makes  all  things  seem  better  than  they  are.  I  wish  that  I 
may  always  be  pleasing  to  thee,  and  that  these  comforts 
we  have  in  each  other  may  be  daily  increased  so  far  as 
they  be  pleasing  to  God.  I  will  use  that  speech  to  thee 
tliat  Abigail  did  to  David,  I  will  be  a  servant  to  wash  the 
feet  of  my  lord  ;  I  will  do  any  service  wherein  I  may  please 
my  good  husband.  I  confess  I  cannot  do  enough  for 
thee  ;  but  thou  art  pleased  to  accept  the  will  for  the  deed 
and  rest  contented.  I  have  many  reasons  to  make  me 
love  thee,  whereof  I  shall  name  two  :  First,  because  thou 
lovest  God,  and  secondly,  because  thou  lovest  me.  If 
these  two  were  wanting  all  the  rest  would  be  eclipsed. 
But  I  must  leave  this  discourse  and  go  about  my  house- 
hold affairs.  I  am  a  bad  housewife  to  be  so  long  from 
them  ;  but  I  must  needs  borrow  a  little  time  to  talk  with 
thee,  my  sweetheart.  It  will  be  but  two  or  three  weeks 
before  I  see  thee,  though  they  be  long  ones.  God  will 
bring  us  together  in  good  time,  for  which  time  I  shall 
pray.     And  thus  with  my  mother's  and  my  own  best  love 


COUETSIIIP   AND   MARRIAGE   CUSTOMS  81 

to  yourself  I  shall  leave  scribbling.     Farewell  my  good 
husband,  the  Lord  keep  thee. 

*'  Your  obedient  wife, 

"Margaret  Winthrop." 

Who  can  read  the  beautiful  words  without  feeling 
for  that  sweet  Margaret,  who  died  two  centuries 
ago,  a  thrill  of  the  affection  that  must  have  glowed 
for  her  in  John  Winthrop's  heart,  when,  far  away 
from  her,  he  first  opened  and  read  this  tender  letter. 

Warm  eulogies  did  many  a  staid  New  Englander 
write  of  his  loving  consort,  eulogies  in  rhyme,  and 
epitaphs,  elegies,  threnodies,  epicediums,  anagrams, 
acrostics,  and  pindarics,  all  speaking  loudly  of  loving, 
"  painful "  care,  if  not  of  a  spirit  of  poesy.  And  the 
even,  virtuous  tenor  of  the  life  in  New  England  proved 
too  a  happiness  and  contentment  equal  to  the  marital/ 
results  of  more  emotional  and  romantic  love-making.' 
There  were  some  divorces.  Madam  Knight  found 
that  they  were  plentiful  in  Connecticut  in  1704,  as 
they  are  in  that  State  nowadays.     She  writes  : 

"  These  uncomely  Stand-aways  are  too  much  in  vogue 
among  the  English  in  this  indulgent  colony,  as  their 
records  plentifully  prove  ;  and  that  on  very  trivial  matters 
of  which  some  have  been  told  me,  but  are  not  Proper  to  be 
Related  by  a  Female  Pen." 

In  town  records  we  find  that  divorces,  though  in- 
frequent, still  were  occasionally  given  in  other  New 
England  States  ;  but  the  causes  assigned  therefor,  to 
follow  Madam  Knight's  example,  need  not  be  "  Be- 
lated by  a  Female  Pen." 
6 


Ill 

DOMESTIC  SERVICE 

It  is  plainly  evident  that  in  a  country  where  land 
was  to  be  had  for  the  asking,  fuel  for  the  cutting, 
corn  for  the  planting  and  harvesting,  and  game  and 
fish  for  the  least  expenditure  of  labor,  no  man 
would  long  serve  for  another,  and  any  system  of  re- 
liable service  indoors  or  afield  must  fail.  Whether 
the  colonists  came  to  work  or  not,  they  had  to  in 
order  to  live,  for  domestic  service  was  soon  in  the 
most  chaotic  state.  "Women  were  forced  to  be  not- 
able housekeepers  ;  men  were  compelled  to  attend  to 
every  detail  of  masculine  labor  in  their  households 
and  on  their  farms,  thus  acquiring  and  developing 
a  "  handiness "  at  all  trades,  which  has  become  a 
Yankee  trait. 

The  question  of  adequate  and  proper  household 
service  soon  became  a  question  of  importance  and  of 
painful  consideration  in  the  new  land.  Rev.  Ezekiel 
Rogers  wrote  most  feelingly  in  1656  on  this  subject : 

*'  Much  ado  have  I  with  my  own  family,  hard  to  get  a 
servant  glad  of  catechizing  or  family  duties.  I  had  a 
rare  blessing  of  servants  in  Yorkshire,  and  those  I  brought 
over  were  a  blessing,  but  the  young  brood  doth  much  af- 
flict me." 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  83 

The  Massachusetts  colonists  had  attempted  even 
before  starting,  to  meet  and  simplify  the  servant 
question  by  rigidly  excluding  any  corrupt  element. 
They  even  sent  back  to  England  boys  who  had  been 
unruly  on  shipboard.  But  the  number  of  penalties 
imposed  on  servants  during  the  early  years  are  a 
lasting  record  of  the  affliction  caused  by  the  young 
brood. 

All  the  early  travellers  speak  of  the  lack  of  good 
servants  in  the  new  land.  The  "Diary  of  a  French 
Eefugee  in  Boston,"  in  1687,  says :  "  There  is  an  ab- 
solute Need  of  Hired  help ; "  and  that  savages  were 
employed  in  the  fields  at  eighteen-pence  a  day.  This 
latter  form  of  service  was  naturally  the  first  way  of 
solving  the  vexed  question.  The  captives  in  war 
were  divided  in  lots  and  assigned  to  housekeepers. 
We  find  even  gentle  Koger  Williams  asking  for  "  one 
of  the  drove  of  Adam's  degenerate  seed  "  as  a  slave. 
Hugh  Peters,  of  Salem,  wrote  to  a  Boston  friend: 
"Wee  haue  heard  of  a  diuidence  of  women  &  chil- 
dren in  the  baye  &  would  bee  glad  of  a  share  viz.:  a 
young  woman  or  girle  &  a  boy  if  you  thinke  good." 
Two  years  later  he  wrote  :  "  My  wife  desires  my 
daughter  to  send  to  Hanna  that  was  her  maid  now 
at  Charlestowne  to  know  if  she  would  dwell  with  us, 
for  truly  wee  are  now  so  destitute  (having  now  but 
an  Indian)  that  wee  know  not  what  to  do."  Lowell 
thus  comments  on  such  savage  ministrations  : 

"  Let  any  housewife  of  our  day  who  does  not  find  the 
Keltic  element  in  domestic  life  so  refreshing  as  to  Mr. 


84  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Arnold  in  literature,  imagine  a  household  with  one  wild 
Pequot  woman,  communicated  with  by  signs,  for  its  maid- 
of-all-work,  and  take  courage.  Those  were  serious  times 
indeed  when  your  cook  might  give  warning  by  taking 
your  scalp  or  chignon,  as  the  case  might  be,  and  making 
off  with  it  into  the  woods." 

We  frequently  glean  from  diaries  of  the  times  hints 
of  the  pleasures  of  having  a  wild  Nipmuck  or  Narra- 
gansett  Indian  as  "help."  Eev.  Peter  Thatcher,  of 
Milton,  Mass.,  bought  an  Indian  in  1674  for  £5  down 
and  £5  more  at  the  end  of  the  year — a  high-priced 
servant  for  the  times.  One  of  her  duties  was,  appar- 
ently, the  care  of  a  young  Thatcher  infant.  Shortly 
after  the  purchase,  the  reverend  gentleman  makes 
this  entry  in  his  diary :  "  Came  home  and  found  my 
Indian  girl  had  liked  to  have  knocked  my  Theodorah 
on  the  head  by  letting  her  fall.  "Whereupon  I  took  a 
good  walnut  stick  and  beat  the  Indian  to  purpose  till 
she  promised  to  do  so  no  more."  Mr.  Thatcher  was 
really  a  very  kindly  gentleman  and  a  good  Christian, 
but  the  natural  solicitude  of  a  young  father  over  his 
firstborn  provoked  him  to  the  telling  use  of  the  wal- 
nut stick  as  a  civilizing  influence. 

When  we  reach  newspaper  days  we  find  Indian 
servants  frequently  among  the  runaways ;  as  Mather 
said,  they  could  not  endure  the  yoke ;  and,  indeed, 
it  would  seem  natural  enough  that  any  such  wild 
child  of  the  forests  should  flee  away  from  the 
cramped  atmosphere  of  a  Puritan  household  and 
house.     We  read  pathetic  accounts  of  the  desertion 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  85 

of  aged  colonists  by  their  Indian  servants.  One 
writes  that  he  took  his  "  Pecod  girle  "  as  a  "  chilld 
of  death"  when  but  two  years  old,  had  reared  her 
kindly,  nursed  her  in  sickness,  and  now  she  had  run 
away  from  him  when  he  sorely  needed  her,  and  he 
wished  to  buy  a  blackamoor  in  her  place.  Sometimes 
the  description  of  the  costumes  in  which  these  sav- 
ages took  their  flitting,  is  extremely  picturesque. 
This  is  from  the  Boston  News  Letier  of  October, 
1707: 

"  Run  away  from  her  master  Baker.  A  tall  Lusty  Car- 
olina Indian  woman  named  Keziah  Wampum,  having 
long  straight  Black  Hair  tyed  up  with  a  red  Hair  Lace, 
very  much  marked  in  the  hands  and  face.  Had  on  a 
strip'd  red  blue  &  white  Homespun  Jacket  &  a  Red  one. 
A  Black  &  White  Silk  Crape  Petticoat,  A  White  Shift,  as 
Also  a  blue  one  with  her,  and  a  mixt  Blue  and  White 
Linsey  Woolsey  Apron." 

A  reward  of  four  pounds  was  offered  for  this  bar- 
baric creature. 

Another  Indian  runaway  in  1728  was  thus  be- 
dizened, showing  a  startling  progress  in  adornment 
from  the  apron  of  skins  and  blanket  of  her  wildwood 
home. 

*'  She  wore  off  a  Narrow  Stript  pinck  Cherredary  Goun 
turn'd  up  with  a  little  flour'd  red  &  white  Callico.  A 
Stript  Homespun  Quilted  Petticoat,  a  plain  muslin  Apron, 
a  suit  of  plain  Pinners  &  a  red  &  white  flower'd  knot, 
also  a  pair  of  gi-een  Stone  Earrings  with  White  Cotton 
Stockings  &  Leather  heel'd  Wooden  Shoes." 


86  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

Indian  men  often  left  their  masters  dishonestly 
dressed  in  their  masters'  fine  apparel,  and  even 
wearing  beribboned  flaxen  wigs,  which  must  have 
been  comic  to  a  degree  over  their  harsh,  saturnine 
countenances — "  as  brown  as  any  bun." 

A  limited  substitute  for  Indian  housemaids  was 
found  at  an  early  day  in  "  help,"  as  it  was  called  even 
then.  Eoger  Williams,  writing  of  his  daughter,  said  : 
"  She  desires  to  spend  some  time  in  service  &  liked 
much  Mrs.  Brenton  who  wanted."  John  Tinker, 
who  himself  was  help,  wrote  thus  to  John  "Winthrop  ; 
"  Help  is  scarce,  hard  to  get,  difficult  to  please,  un- 
certain, &c.  Means  runneth  out  and  wages  on  &  I 
cannot  make  choice  of  my  help. "  Children  of  well- 
to-do  citizens  thus  worked  in  domestic  service.  Mem- 
bers of  the  family  of  the  rich  Judge  Sewall  lived  out 
as  help.  The  sons  of  Downing  and  of  Hooke  went 
with  their  kinsman,  Governor  Winthrop,  as  servants. 
Sir  Robert  Crane  also  sent  his  cousin  to  the  governor 
as  a  farm-servant.  In  Andover  an  Abbott  maiden 
lived  as  help  for  years  in  the  house  of  a  Phillips. 
Children  were  bound  out  when  but  eight  years  old. ' 
These  neighborly  forms  of  domestic  assistance  were 
necessarily  slow  of  growth  and  limited  in  extent, 
and  negro  slavery  appeared  to  the  colonists  a  much 
more  effectual  and  speedy  way  of  solving  the  dif- 
ficulty ;  and  the  Indian  war-prisoners,  who  proved 
such  poor  and  dangerous  house-servants,  seemed  a 
convenient,  cheap,  and  God-sent  means  of  exchange 
for  "Moores,"  as  they  were  called,  who  were  far 
better  servants.     Emanuel  Downing  wrote  in  1645 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  87 

that  lie  thought  it  ''  synne  in  us  having  power  in 
our  hand  to  suffer  them  (the  Indians)  to  mayn- 
tayne  the  worship  of  the  devill,"  that  they  should 
be  removed  from  their  pow-wows,  and  suggests  the 
exchange  for  negroes,  saying  :  "  I  doe  not  see  how 
wee  can  thrive  vntill  wee  into  gett  a  stock  of  slaves 
sufficient  to  doe  all  our  business." 

Downing  had  a  personal  interest  in  the  gaining  of 
Moors ;  for  he  had  had  almost  as  much  trouble  in  ob- 
taining servants  as  he  did  in  marrying  off  his  chil- 
dren. We  find  him  and  his  wife  writing  to  Winthrop 
for  help,  buying  Indians,  sending  home  more  than 
once  to  England  for  "godlye  skylful  paynstakeing  ]/ 
girles,"  beseeching  their  neighbors  to  send  them  ser- 
vants "  of  good  caridg  and  godly  conuersation  ;  "  and 
at  last  buying  negroes,  to  try  in  every  way  to  solve 
the  vexed  question. 

Though  the  early  planters  came  to  New  England 
to  obtain  and  maintain  liberty,  and  "  bond  slaverie,  / 
villinage,"  and  other  feudal  servitudes  were  prohib- 
ited under  the  ninety-first  article  of  the  Body  of 
Liberties,  still  they  needed  but  this  suggestion  of 
Downing's  to  adopt  quickly  what  was  then  the  uni- 
versal and  unquestioned  practice  of  all  Christian  na- 
tions— slavery.  Josselyn  found  slaves  on  Noddle's 
Island  in  Boston  Harbor  at  his  first  visit,  though 
they  were  not  held  in  a  Puritan  family.  By  1687  a 
French  refugee  wrote  home  : 

*'  You  may  also  here  own  Negroes  and  Negresses,  there 
is  not  a  house  in  Boston  however  small  mav  be  its  means,  ^ 


88  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

that  has  not  one  or  two.    .    .    .    Negroes  cost  from  twenty 
to  forty  Pistoles." 

In  Connecticut  the  crime  of  man -stealing  was 
made  punishable  by  death ;  and  in  1646  the  Massa- 
chusetts General  Court  awoke  to  the  growing  condi- 
tion of  affairs  and  bore  witness  "  by  the  first  Optu- 
nity,  ag't  the  hainous  &  crying  sinn  of  man-stealing," 
and  undertook  to  send  back  to  "  Gynny "  negroes 
who  had  been  kidnapped  by  a  slaver  and  brought  to 
New  England,  and  to  send  a  letter  of  explanation  and 
apology  with  them. 

Though  in  the  beginning  he  refused  to  harbor 
or  tolerate  negro-stealers,  the  Massachusetts  Puritan 
of  that  day,  enraged  at  the  cruelty  of  the  savage  red 
men,  did  not  hesitate  to  sell  Indian  captives  as 
slaves  to  the  West  Indies.  King  Philip's  wife  and 
child  were  thus  sold  and  there  died.  Their  story 
was  told  in  scathing  language  by  Edward  Everett. 
In  1703  it  was  made  legal  to  transport  and  sell  in  the 
Barbadoes  all  Indian  male  captives  under  ten,  and 
Indian  women  captives.  Perhaps  these  transactions 
quickly  blunted  whatever  early  feeling  may  have 
existed  against  negro  slavery,  for  soon  the  African 
slave-trade  flourished  in  New  England  as  in  Vir- 
ginia, Newport  being  the  New  England  centre  of  the 
Guinea  Trade.  From  1707  to  1732  a  tax  of  three 
guineas  a  head  was  imposed  in  Rhode  Island  on 
each  negro  imported — on  "  Guinea  blackbirds."  It 
would  be  idle  to  dwell  now  on  the  cruelty  of  that 
horrid  traffic,  the  sufferings  on  board  the  slavers  from 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  89 

lack  of  room,  of  food,  of  water,  of  air.  But  three 
feet  three  inches  was  allowed  between  decks  for  the 
poor  negro,  who,  accustomed  to  a  free,  out-of-door 
life,  thus  crouched  and  sat  through  the  passage.  No 
wonder  the  loss  of  life  was  great.  It  was  chronicled 
in  the  newspapers  and  letters  of  the  day  in  cold, 
heartless  language  that  plainly  spoke  the  indifference 
of  the  public  to  the  trade  and  its  awful  consequences. 
I  have  never  seen  in  any  Southern  newspapers  ad- 
vertisements of  negro  sales  that  surpass  in  heart- 
lessness  and  viciousness  the  advertisements  of  our 
NewEngland  ncAvspapers  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Negro  children  were  advertised  to  be  given  away  in 
Boston,  and  were  sold  by  the  pound  as  was  other 
merchandise.  Samuel  Pewter  advertised  in  the 
~Weekly  Rehearsal  in  1737  that  he  would  sell  horses 
for  ten  shillings  pay  if  the  horse  sale  were  accom- 
plished, and  five  shillings  if  he  endeavored  to  sell  and 
could  not ;  and  for  negroes  "  sixpence  a  pound  on  all 
he  sells,  and  a  reasonable  price  if  he  does  not  sell." 

Many  letters  still  exist  of  advices  from  ship- 
owners to  ship-captains,  advice  as  to  the  purchase, 
care,  and  choice  of  captives,  "  to  get  one  old  man 
for  a  Lingister;  to  worter  ye  Eum  &  sell  by  short 
mesuer  &c.  &c."  Negro-stealing  by  Americans  con- 
tinued till  1864,  when  a  brig  sailing  westward  from 
Africa  on  that  iniquitous  errand,  was  lost  at  sea — a 
grim  ending  to  three  centuries  of  incredible  and  im- 
christian  cruelty. 

The  first_aiiti-s1  avery-tracl  published  ia  America 
was  written  by  Judge  Sewall  in  the  year  1700 — "  The 


90  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Selling  of  Joseph."  His  timid  protest  but  little 
availed,  though  he  persevered  in  his  belief  and  his 
opposition  to  the  day  of  his  death.  Other  colonists 
who  were  opposed  to  the  traffic  were  willing  to  buy 
slaves,  that  the  poor  heathen  might  be  brought  up  in 
a  Christian  land,  be  led  away  from  their  idols — Abra- 
ham and  the  patriarchs  were  given  as  authorities  in 
justification  of  thus  doing.  One  respectable  Newport 
elder,  who  sent  many  a  profitable  venture  to  the 
Gold  Coast  for  "  black  ivory,"  always  gave  pious 
thanks  in  meeting  on  the  Sunday  after  the  safe  arri- 
val of  a  slaver,  "  that  a  gracious  overruling  Provi- 
dence had  been  pleased  to  bring  to  this  land  of 
Freedom  another  cargo  of  benighted  heathen  to  en- 
joy the  blessing  of  a  Gospel  dispensation,"  and  I 
suppose  he  fancied  he  had  cheated  his  Maker,  his 
congregation,  and  himself  into  believing  that  there 
was  some  truth  and  decency  in  the  specious  words 
that  framed  a  lie  in  every  clause.  Many  ministers 
.were  slave  owners ;  Daille — the  French  Huguenot, 
Dr.  Hopkins,  Dr.  Williams,  Ezra  Stiles,  and  Jona- 
than Edwards  being  noted  examples.  The  ministers 
from  Eliot  down  were  kind  to  the  blacks,  preaching 
special  sermons  to  them,  and  forming  religious  asso- 
ciations for  them.  A  negro  school  for  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  catechizing  was  established  in  Boston  in 
1728. 

Cotton  Mather  had  a  negro  worth  fifty  pounds 
given  him  by  his  congregation,  and  that  "  most  no- 
torious benefactor,"  with  his  never-ceasing  "  essay  to 
doe  good,"  at  once,  in  gratitude  for  the  gift,  devoted 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  91 

tlie  negro  to  God's  service,  and  made  many  a  noble 
resolve  to  save,  througli  God's  grace,  his  bondsman's 
soul.  It  is  painful  to  read  at  a  later  date  that  he 
found  his  unregenerate  slave  "  horribly  arrested  by 
spirits,"  by  which  he  did  not  mean  captured  by  the 
dreaded  emissaries  of  the  devil  who  pervaded  the 
air  of  Boston  and  Salem  at  that  time,  but  simply 
very  drunk. 

Slaves  were  more  plentiful -iBr-Gonnecticut  and 
Ehode  Island  than  in  Massachusetts.  Madam 
Knight  gives  a  glimpse  of  Connecticut  slave  life  in 
1704,  and  of  awkward  table  traits  in  both  master  and 
slave  as  well,  when  she  says  that  the  negroes  were 
too  familiar,  were  permitted  to  sit  at  the  table  with 
the  master,  and  "  into  the  Dish  goes  the  black  Hoof 
as  freely  as  the  white  Hand."  Hawthorne  says  of 
New  England  slaves : 

"  They  were  not  excluded  from  the  domestic  affections  ; 
in  families  of  middling  rank,  they  had  their  places  at  the 
board ;  and  when  the  circle  closed  around  the  evening 
hearth  its  blaze  glowed  on  their  dark  shining  faces,  in- 
termixed familiarly  with  their  master's  children.  It  must 
have  contributed  to  reconcile  them  to  their  lot,  that  they 
saw  white  men  and  women  imported  from  Europe  as 
they  had  been  from  Africa,  and  sold,  though  only  for  a 
term  of  years,  yet  as  actual  slaves  to  the  highest  bidder." 

In  the  main,  New  England  slaves  were  not  un-  *f 
happy,  for  they  were  well  treated,  and  the  race  has  /  \ 
the  gift  to  be  merry  in  the  worst  of  circumstances.  / 
Occasionally  one  would  be  brought  to  the  northern  J 


92  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

land,  one  of  higher  sensibilities,  more  sensitive  affec- 
tions, greater  pride  ;  one  who  could  not  live  a  slave. 
Such  a  one  was  the  haughty  Congo  Pomp,  who  es- 
caped to  a  swamp  near  Truro  on  Cape  Cod — a  swamp 
now  called  by  his  name — and  placing  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree  a  jug  of  water  and  loaf  of  bread  to  sustain  him 
on  his  last  long  journey,  hanged  himself  from  the 
low-hanging  limbs,  and  thus  obtained  freedom. 
Such  also  was  Parson  Williams's  slave  Cato  in  Long- 
meadow,  Mass.  He  bore  repeated  whippings  for  his 
high-spirited  disobedience,  "for  speaking  out  loud 
in  meeting,  drinking  too  much  cider,  going  on  a  ram- 
page," and  finally  drowned  liimseK  in  a  well. 

Waitstill  Winthrop  wrote  thus  of  one  suicidal  Moor 
to  Pitz  John  Winthrop  in  1682. 

"I  fear  Black  Tom  will  do  but  little  seruis.  He  usued 
to  make  a  show  of  hangeing  himselfe  before  folkes,  but  I 
believe  he  is  not  very  nimble  about  it  when  he  is  alone. 
Tis  good  to  have  an  eye  to  him  &  you  think  it  not  worth 
while  to  keep  him  eyether  sell  him  or  send  him  to  Vir- 
ginia or  the  Barbadoes." 

William  Pyncheon  had  also  a  slave  who  was  "  as- 
siduous in  hangeing."  To  be  sold  to  Virginia  was  a 
standard  threat  to  New  England  slaves,  as  work  in 
Southern  tobacco-fields  was  thought  much  more  se- 
,  vere  than  in  northern  cornfields. 
V  Slavery  lingered  in  New  England  until  after  Revo- 
lutionary days.  It  is  said  that  its  death  blow  was 
dealt  in  Worcester,  Mass.,  in  1783,  when  a  citizen 
was  tried  for  assaulting  and  beating  his  negro  ser- 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  93 

vant.  Tlie  defence  was  that  the  black  man  was  a 
slave,  and  the  beating  was  but  necessary  restraint 
and  correction.  The  master  was  found  guilty  in 
the  Worcester  County  Court  and  fined  forty  shil- 
lings. 

Though  there  were  few  slaves  who  were  willing  to 
leave  life  in  order  to  be  free,  many  were  willing  to 
try  to  leave  their  masters.  The  early  New  England 
newspapers  abound  in  advertisements  of  runaway 
blacks — in  gay  attire,  with  fiddles  and  guns,  be- 
wigged  and  silk-stockinged,  well  dressed  if  not  well 
treated. 

I  know  no  records  that  show  more  fully,  though 
wholly  unconsciously,  the  vast  simplicity  of  our 
ancestors  than  these  advertisements  of  runaway  ser- 
vants. Fancy  giving  as  a  possible  means  of  identifi- 
cation of  any  human  being  such  an  item  of  descrip- 
tions as  this :  "  When  he  gets  drunk  or  drinks 
much  he  is  red  in  the  face  " — as  if  that  were  an  ex- 
traordinary or  peculiar  trait  in  any  drunken  man ! 
Another  runaway  is  said  to  have  had  "  sometimes  a 
sly  look  in  his  eye  and  wears  the  button  of  his  hat  in 
front ; "  another  to  have  been  a  liar ;  another  to  have 
been  "  somewhat  impudent  if  crossed,  and  has  a  leer- 
ing look  under  his  eyes."  Others  were  "  awkward  in 
manners,"  "  somewhat  morose  in  countenance,"  "  had 
long  finger-nails,"  "  had  one  or  two  pimples  on  the 
face,"  "  is  too  fond  of  talking."  It  seems  almost  in- 
credible that  intelligent  persons  should  have  given 
such  childish  and  easily  obliterated  or  varied  par- 
ticulars of  description. 


y 


94  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Diverse  names  were  applied  to  these  runaways : 
"Sirrinam  Indianman  Slave,"  "  Mustee-fellow,"  "Mo 
latto,"  "Moor,"  " Maddagerscar-boy,"  "  Guinyman," 
"Congoman,"  "**  Coast-fellow,"  "Tawny,"  "Black-a- 
moor  " — all  apparently  conveying  some  distinction  of 
description  universally  comprehended  at  the  time. 

We  have  a  few  records  of  worthy  black  servants 
who  remind  us  of  the  faithful,  loving  house-servants 
of  old  Southern  families.  Such  a  one  was  Judge 
Sewall's  man,  Boston — a  freeman — to  a  master  who 
deserved  faithful  service,  if  ever  master  did.  The  en- 
tries in  the  Judge's  diary,  meagre  as  they  are,  some- 
how show  fully  to  us  that  faithful  life  of  service.  We 
see  Boston  taking  the  Sewall  children  out  sledding ; 
we  see  him  carrying  one  of  the  little  daughters  out  of 
town  in  his  arms  when  the  neighbors  were  suddenly 
smitten  with  that  colonial  plague,  the  small-pox. 
We  find  him,  in  later  years,  a  tender  nurse,  sleeping 
by  the  fire  in  languishing  Hannah  Sewall's  sick- 
chamber  ;  and,  after  her  death,  we  hear  him  protest- 
ing against  the  removal  of  her  dead  form  from  her 
chamber;  and  we  can  see  him  weeping  as  he  sat 
through  the  lonely  nights  with  his  dead  and  dearly 
loved  mistress,  till  she  was  hidden  from  his  view. 
It  is  pleasing  to  know  that  though  he  lived  a  servant, 
he  was  buried  like  a  gentleman;  he  received  that 
token  of  final  respect  so  highly  prized  in  Boston — 
a  ceremonious  funeral,  with  a  good  fire,  and  chairs 
set  in  rows,  and  plenty  of  wine  and  cake,  and  a  notice 
in  the  Neios  Letter^  and  doubtless  gloves  in  decent 
numbers. 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  95 

Other  black  men  led  noble  lives  in  service,  if  we 
can  trust  the  records  on  their  tombstones. 

This  elegant  epitaph  is  upon  a  gravestone  in  Con- 
cord, Mass. : 

**  GOD   WILLS   US   FREE  ;    MAN   WILLS   US   SLAVES 
I   WILL   AS     GOD    WILLS,    GODS   WILL   BE    DONE. 
HERE   LIES    THE   BODY    OF 

JOHN   JACK 

A  NATIVE   OF   AFRICA,    WHO    DIED 

MARCH    1773    AGED    ABOUT    SIXTY   YEARS. 

THOUGH    BORN    IN   A   LAND   OF   SLAVERY 

HE   WAS    BORN    FREE 

THOUGH   HE   LIVED    IN   A   LAND    OF   LIBERTY 

HE    LIVED    A    SLAVE. 

TILL   BY   HIS    HONEST    (tHOUGH    STOLEn)    LABORS 

HE    ACQUIRED    THE    CAUSE    OF    SLAVERY 

WHICH    GAVE    HIM    FREEDOM 

THOUGH   NOT   LONG   BEFORE 

DEATH,    THE   GRAND    TYRANT 

GAVE   HIM    HIS    FINAL    EMANCIPATION 

AND    PUT   HIM    ON    A    FOOTING    WITH    KINGS. 

THOUGH    A    SLAVE    TO    VICE 

HE   PRACTISED    THOSE    VIRTUES 

WITHOUT   WHICH   KINGS   ARE  BUT   SLAVES." 

At  Attleborough,  Mass. ,  near  the  old  Hatch  Tav- 
ern, may  be  seen  this  epitaph : 

"here   lies   THE   BEST   OF   SLAVES 

NOW   TURNING   INTO   DUST, 
C^SAR   THE    AETHIOPIAN   CLAIMS 

A   PLACE   AMONG   THE   JUST. 

HIS   FAITHFUL   SOUL   HAS   FLED 

TO   REALMS   OF    HEAVENLY    LIGHT, 


96  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

AND   BY   THE   BLOOD   THAT   JESUS    SHED 
IS   CHANGED   FROM   BLACK    TO    WHITE. 

JAN.    15tH   HE   QUITTED   THE   STAGE 
IN   THE    77th   YEAR   OF   HIS   AGE. 

1781." 

^  Besides  slaves,  Indians,  and  help,  a  species  of 
nexal  servitude  also  existed  in  all  the  colonies.  At 
the  beginning  of  colonization  bound  or  indentured 
white  servants  were  sent  in  large  numbers  to  the 
new  land.  Thirty  came  to  the  Bay  Colony  as  early 
as  1625.  Some  of  the  terms  of  service  were  very 
long,  even  for  ten  years.  These  indentured  servants 
were  in  three  classes :  *'  free-willers,"  or  "  redemp- 
tioners,"  or  voluntary  emigrants;  "kids,"  who  had 
been  seduced  through  ignorance  or  duplicity  on  board 
ships  that  carried  them  off  to  America  ;  and  convicts 
transported  for  crime.  The  latter  expatriated  vaga- 
bonds were  sent  chiefly  to  Virginia.  The  "  kids " 
were  trapanned,  by  the  fair  promises  of  crimps  or 
"  spirits,"  in  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  England,  where 
kidnapping  formed  an  extensive  and  incredibly  bold 
business.  The  Scots  were  brought  over  and  sold  at 
the  time  of  English  wars.  At  one  time  "  Scots,  In- 
dians, and  Negars  "  were  not  allowed  to  train  in  the 
militia  in  Massachusetts.  Many  curious  and  roman- 
tic stories  are  told  of  these  kidnapped  servants.  One 
day,  in  1730,  a  number  of  Boston  gentlemen  went  to 
the  Long  Wharf  to  examine  a  cargo  of  Irish  trans- 
)orts  then  offered  for  sale.     Among  the  lads  who  ran 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  97 

up  and  down  the  wharf  to  show  his  strength  and  con- 
dition was  one  who  had  gone  to  sea  on  another  ship. 
The  captain,  his  uncle,  died  at  sea,  and  the  crew  sold 
the  boy  to  this  transport-ship,  which  chanced  to  pass 
them.  The  boy  faithfully  served  out  his  time  to  his 
purchaser,  and  became  a  gallant  officer  in  the  wars 
with  the  Indians. 
/  These  indentured  servants  were  just  as  trying  as 
the  Indians  and  the  negroes,  and  in  particular 
showed  a  lawless  disregard  for  their  masters'  prop- 
erty, an  indifference  to  the  authority  of  the  weal- 
public,  and  a  lazy  disinclination  to  work ;  one  writer 
describes  them  as  "  tender  fingered  in  cold  weather." 
The  Mt.  Wollaston  lot  that  followed  Morton  to 
Merry  Mount  were  but  the  forerunners  of  hundreds 
of  others.  The  Bradstreets'  servant,  John,  may  be 
taken  as  a  type  of  many  refractory  bound  servants. 
He  was  brought  to  trial  in  1661,  for  "  stealing  several 
things  as  pigges,  capons,  mault,  bacon,  butter,  eggs, 
etc.,  and  breaking  open  a  seller  door  several  times." 
John,  when  pulled  up  for  trial,  affirmed  that  he  had 
really  a  very  small  appetite,  but  the  food  furnished  by 
that  colonial  blue-stocking,  Anne  Bradstreet,  was  not 
fit  to  eat,  the  bread  being  black  and  heavy  and  sour, 
and  he  only  took  an  occasional  surreptitious  bite  to 
keep  himself  from  starvation.  But  it  was  proved  that 
he  had  feasted  not  only  himself,  but  comrades,  and 
that  a  neighbor,  who  had  a  "  great  fat  Turkey  against 
his  daughter's  marriage  "  hung  up  in  a  locked  room, 
was  relieved  of  it  by  the  hungry  and  agile  John,  who 
got  some  of  his  fellows  to  let  him  doAvn  the  chimney 
7 


98  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

to  steal  the  turkey  and  good  store  of  beer,  with  which 
they  all  caroused  ;  and  he  was  fitly  punished. 
:J^  The  laws  were  strict  enough  at  first  as  to  the  be- 
havior of  servants,  and  occasionally  a  topping  young 
maid  felt  their  force.  In  Hartford,  "  Susan  Coles  for 
her  rebellious  cariedge  towards  her  mistris  is  to  be 
sent  to  the  house  of  correction  and  be  kept  to  hard 
labour  and  course  dyet,  to  be  brought  forth  the  next 
Lecture  Day  to  be  publicquely  corrected  and  so  to  be 
corrected  weekly  until  Order  be  given  to  the  contrary." 
In  York,  Me.,  in  1645,  "Alexander  Maxwell  for 
his  grosse  offence  in  his  exorbitant  and  abusive  car- 
riages towards  his  master  Mr.  George  Leader  shall 
be  publicly  brought  forth  to  the  Whipping  Post, 
where  he  shall  be  fastened  till  30  lashes  be  given 
him  upon  his  bare  skin."  Maxwell  was  ordered  to 
satisfy  his  master  for  the  money  paid  for  his  board 
in  prison,  and,  if  he  further  misbehaved,  Mr.  Leader 
could  sell  him  to  Yirginia. 
^  In  later  days  New  England  housewives  must  have 

longed  for  the  good  old  times  of  the  whipping-post 
and  coarse  diet  and  hard  work  for  disorderly  and  in- 
subordinate redemption ers.  Hear  what  gentle  Mary 
Dudley  endured  with  one  of  her  maids.  She  had 
written  many  pathetic  entreaties  to  her  mother. 
Madam  "Winthrop,  to  send  her  a  "good  girle,  a 
strong  lusty  servant,"  one  "  vsed  to  all  kind  of  work 
who  would  refuse  none,"  and  we  learn  what  she  got, 
from  a  letter  written  a  few  months  later,  with  a  new- 
bom  babe  by  her  side  : 

*'  A  great  affliction  I  have  met  withal  by  my  maide  ser- 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  99 

vant  and  now  I  am  like  through  God  his  mercie  to  be  freed 
from  it ;  at  her  first  coming  me  she  carried  her  selfe  du- 
tifully as  became  a  servant ;  but  since  through  mine  and 
my  husbands  forbearance  towards  her  for  small  faults, 
she  hath  got  such  a  head  and  is  growen  so  insolent  that 
her  carriage  towards  vs  especialle  myselfe  is  unsufferable. 
If  I  bid  her  doe  a  thinge  she  will  bid  me  to  doe  it  my- 
selfe, and  she  sayes  how  she  can  give  content  as  wel  as 
any  servant  but  shee  will  not,  and  sayes  if  I  love  not  quiet- 
nes  I  was  never  so  fitted  in  my  life  for  she  would  make 
mee  have  enough  of  it.  If  I  should  write  to  you  of  all 
the  reviling  speeches  and  filthie  language  she  hath  vsed 
towards  me  I  should  but  grieve  you.  My  husband  hath 
vsed  all  meanes  for  to  reforme  her,  reasons  and  perswa- 
sions,  but  shee  doth  profess  that  her  heart  and  her  nat- 
ure will  not  suffer  her  to  confesse  her  faults.  If  I  tell 
my  husband  of  her  behavior  towards  me,  vpon  examina- 
tion she  will  denie  all  she  hath  done  or  spok6n,  so  that 
we  know  not  how  to  proceed  against  her." 

We  must  not  forget  that  the  "Winthrops  had  the 
best  opportunity  of  any  in  the  land  to  have  good 
servants;  for  not  only  were  help  placed  in  their 
families,  but  the  best  of  English  servants  were  con- 
signed to  them ;  yet  neither  the  Governor's  sister, 
Madam  Downing,  nor  his  daughter.  Madam  Dudley, 
could  be  "suited."  And  hear  the  plaint  of  John 
Winthrop  to  his  father  in  1717 : 

"It  is  not  convenient  now  to  write  the  trouble  and 
plague  we  have  had  with  this  Irish  creature  the  year  past. 
Lying  and  unfaithfuU  ;  w'd  doe  things  on  purpose  in  con- 


100  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

tradiction  and  vexation  to  her  mistress ;  lye  out  of  the 
house  anights  and  have  contrivances  w'th  fellows  that  have 
been  stealing  from  o'r  estate  and  gett  drink  out  of  ye  cellar 
for  them  ;  saucy  and  impudent,  as  when  we  have  taken 
her  to  task  for  her  wickedness  she  has  gone  away  to  com- 
plain of  cruell  usage.  I  can  tnily  say  we  have  used  this 
base  creature  w'th  a  great  deal  of  kindness  and  lenity. 
She  w'd  frequently  take  her  mistresses  capps  and  stock- 
ins,  hankerchers  etc.,  to  dresse  herselfe  and  away  with- 
out leave  among  her  companions.  I  may  have  said  some 
time  or  other  when  she  has  been  in  fault  that  she  was  fitt 
to  live  nowhere  but  in  Virginia,  and  if  she  w'd  not  mend 
her  ways  I  should  send  her  thither  tho  I  am  sure  nobody 
w'd  give  her  passage  thither  to  have  her  service  for 
twenty  yeares  she  is  such  a  high-spirited  pirnicious  jade. 
Robin  has  been  run  away  neare  ten  dayes  as  you  will  see 
by  the  inclosed  and  this  creature  know  of  his  going  and 
of  his  carrying  out  4  dozen  bottles  of  cyder,  metheglin 
and  palme  wine  out  of  the  cellar  among  the  servants  of 
the  town  and  meat  and  I  know  not  w't.  The  bottles 
they  broke  and  threw  away  after  they  had  drunk  up  the 
liquor,  and  they  got  up  o'r  sheep  anight,  killed  a  fatt  one, 
roasted  and  made  merry  w'th  it  before  morning." 

^  This  wild  Irish  girl  was  indentured  to  the  unfor- 
tunate "Winthrop  and  his  more  unfortunate  wife  for 
four  years,  and  was  to  have  fifty  shillings  and  some 
other  start  in  the  world  when  her  time  was  up. 

Out-of-the-way  plantations  fared  no  better  in  the 
question  of  service.  John  Wynter,  the  head  agent 
of  the  settlement  at  Eichmonds  Island  in  Maine, 
wrote  thus  resentfully  in  1639,  to  Mr.  Trelawny,  of 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  101 

the   London  company,   of   his    maid,  one  Priscilla 
Beckford  : 

"  You  write  of  some  yll  reports  is  given  of  my  Wyfe  for 
beatinge  the  maide  :  yf  a  faire  waye  will  not  doe  yt,  beat- 
in  ge  must  sometimes  vppon  such  Idlle  giiTels  as  she  is. 
Yf  you  think  yt  fitte  for  my  Wyfe  to  do  all  the  work,  and 
the  maide  sitt  still,  and  she  must  forbear  her  hands  to 
strike,  then  the  work  will  ly  vndonn.  She  hath  bin  now 
2J  yeares  in  the  house  &  I  do  not  thinke  she  hath  risen 
20  tymes  before  my  Wyfe  hath  bin  vp  to  Call  her,  and 
many  tymes  light  the  fire  before  she  comes  out  of  her 
bed.  She  hath  twice  gone  a  mechinge  in  the  woodes 
which  we  have  bin  fain  to  send  all  our  Company  to  seek 
her.  We  can  hardly  keep  her  within  doors  after  we  are 
gonn  to  bed  except  we  carry  the  kay  of  the  door  to  bed 
with  vs.  She  coulde  never  milke  Cow  nor  Goate  since 
she  came  hither.  Our  men  do  not  desire  to  have  her 
boyl  the  kittle  for  them  she  is  so  sluttish.  She  cannot  be 
trusted  to  serve  a  few  piggs  but  my  Wyfe  must  commonly 
be  with  her.  She  hath  written  home  I  heare  that  she  was 
fain  to  ly  vppon  goates  skinns.  She  might  take  some 
goates  skinns  to  ly  in  her  bedd  but  not  given  to  her  for 
her  lodginge.  For  a  yeare  &  quarter  or  more  she  lay 
with  my  daughter  vppon  a  good  feather  bed  ;  before  my 
daughter  being  lacke  3  or  4  days  to  Sacco  the  maid  goes 
into  bed  with  her  cloths  &  stockins  &  would  not  take  the 
paines  to  pluck  off  her  Cloths  ;  her  bed  after  was  a  doust 
bedd  &  shee  had  2  Coverletts  to  ly  on  her,  but  Sheets  she 
had  none,  after  that  tyme  she  was  found  to  be  so  sluttish. 
Her  beatinge  that  she  hath  had  hath  never  hurt  her  body 
nor  limes.  She  is  so  fatt  &  soggy  she  can  hardly  do  any 
worke.    Yf  this  maide  at  her  lazy  tymes  when  she  hath 


102  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

bin  found  in  her  yll  accyons  do  not  desei-ve  2  or  3  blowes 
I  pray  you  who  hath  the  most  reason  to  complain  my 
Wyfe  or  maide.  My  Wyfe  hath  an  Vnthankefull  oflSce. 
Yt  does  not  please  me  well,  being  she  hath  taken  so  much 
paines  and  care  to  order  things  as  well  as  she  could,  and 
ryse  in  the  morning  rath  &  go  to  bed  soe  latte,  and  have 
hard  speeches  for  yt." 

We  can  well  imagine  his  exhausted  patience,  and 
that  of  poor  overworked  Mistress  Wynter,  at  that  fat 
soggy  thing,  that  lag-last,  so  shiftless  and  useless 
about  the  house,  lazing  from  rath  to  latte,  and  then  to 
complete  their  exasperation,  micliing-  off  into  the 
woods  to  shirk  her  work  so  that  the  whole  company- 
had  to  turn  out  with  a  mort  of  trouble  to  hunt  for  the 
leg-trape.  We  cannot  marvel  at  the  beating,  but  sim- 
ply wonder  at  its  being  remarked  in  those  days  of 
many  and  hard  beatings,  when  scholars,  servants, 
soldiers,  and  college  students  were  well  wdiipped, 
and,  in  Old  England,  wives  also. 

Wynter  had  no  better  fortune  without  doors  with 
his  men-servants  and  workmen ;  they  proved  kittle 
cattle.  He  found  them  not  "  plyable  "  or  "  condish- 
ionabell,"  that  they  "  spoke  Fair  to  the  Face  and  Col- 
loged  behind  the  back."     Of  one  malcontent  he  wrote, 

"  He  is  verry  vnwilling  to  do  vs  servize,  he  is  alwaies 
too  hard  labored,  he  cares  not  what  Spoyle  he  makes,  and 
will  not  be  commanded  but  when  he  list.  He  is  such  a  talk- 
inge  Fellow  as  makes  our  company  worse  than  would  be." 

He  says  his  bound  servants  ran  away  at  their  pleas- 
ure, worked  when  they  pleased,  and  led  others  off  to 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  103 

their  lure,  and  should  be  punished  if  they  had  re- 
turned to  England.  One  only  was  "  frace  "  of  his 
ways  and  promised  to  do  better.  Not  only  do  we 
gain  from  Wynter's  letters  a  knowledge  of  the  pains 
of  colonial  domestic  service,  but  I  know  among  New 
England  historical  collections  no  other  such  well  of 
good  old  English  words  and  phrases. 
^  The  Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  better  the 
aspect  of  the  servant  question.  The  Providence  Ga- 
zette advertised  in  1796  that  a  reward  of  j&ve  hundred 
dollars  and  the  "  warmest  blessings  of  abused  house- 
holders "  would.be  given  to  any  restoring  the  conditions 
of  the  good  old  times,  or  rather  what  they  fancied  was 

*'  The  constant  semce  of  the  antique  world 
When  service  sweat  for  duty  not  for  need." 

The  notice  opens  thus : 

^  "  Was  mislaid  or  taken  away  by  mistake,  soon  after  the 
formation  of  the  abolition  society,  from  the  servant  girls 
in  this  town  all  inclination  to  do  any  kind  of  work,  and 
left  in  lieu  thereof  an  independent  appearance,  a  strong 
and  continued  thirst  for  high  wages,  a  gossiping  disposi- 
tion for  every  sort  of  amusement,  a  leering  and  hanker- 
ing after  persons  of  the  other  sex,  a  desire  of  finery  and 
fashion,  a  never-ceasing  trot  after  new  places,  more  ad- 
vantageous for  stealing,  with  a  number  of  contingent  ac" 
complishments  that  do  not  suit  the  wearers." 

•^  President  D wight  wrote  that  the  servants  of  that 
day  were  "  distinguished  for  vice  and  profligacy ; "  so 
the  nineteenth  century  opened  no  more  promisingly 
than  the  eighteenth. 


104  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

^  The  pious  colonists  felt  that  great  spiritual,  as 
well  as  temporal  responsibility  rested  upon  them 
in  regard  to  their  bond-servants.  We  find  in  con- 
temporary letters  frequent  reference  to  the  souls  of 
the  indentured  ones ;  Englishmen  at  the  old  home 
wrote  to  the  settlers  to  remember  well  their  religious, 
their  proselyting  duties ;  and  they  faithfully  re- 
minded each  other  of  their  accountability  for  souls. 
For  instance,  when  a  smart  young  Irishman  came 
over  with  some  Irish  hounds,  his  consigner  besought 
the  New  Englanders  to  remember  that  it  was  as 
godly  to  "winne  this  fellowes  soule  out  of  the 
subtillest  snare  of  Sathan,  Eomes  poUitick  religion, 
as  to  winne  an  Indian  soule  out  of  the  Dieuells 
clawes ; "  and  he  urged  them  to  watch  the  Papist  nar- 
rowly as  to  his  carriage  in  Puritandom,  his  attitude 
toward  Protestantism.  This  was  the  same  religious 
zeal  that  led  the  Boston  elders  to  send  missionaries 
from  New  England  to  convert  the  heathen  of  the 
Established  Church  in  Virginia. 

f/  The  moral  and  religious  condition  of  these  servants 

was  truly  of  great  importance  in  the  preservation  of 
such  a  theocracy  as  was  New  England,  since  few  of 
them  returned  to  England,  but  after  serving  out 
their  time  became  freemen  with  homes  and  land  and 
votes  of  their  own  ;  and  the  commonwealth  could  not 
live  as  a  religious  organization  unless  it  thrived 
through  the  religious  spirit  of  its  citizens. 

J^  One  other  form  of  domestic  service  existed  until 
this  century.  A  limited  amount  of  assistance  was 
given  in  some  households  by  those  unhappy  wights, 


DOMESTIC   SERVICE  105 

the  town-poor.  These  wretched  paupers  were  sold 
to  the  lowest  bidder.  Sometimes  the  buyer  received 
but  a  few  shillings  a  year  from  the  town  for  the 
"  keep  "  of  one  of  these  helpless  souls.  We  may  be 
sure  that  he  got  some  work  out  of  the  pauper  to  pay 
for  his  board.  We  read  of  one  old  Dimbledee,  of 
Widow  Bump  and  Widow  Bumpus,  degenerate  suc- 
cessors in  name  as  well  as  in  estate  of  the  Pilgrim 
Bompasse,  who  were  sold  from  year  to  year  from  one 
farm  to  another  and  given  a  grudged  existence,  till  at 
last  we  find  the  town  paying  for  their  welcome  cof- 
fins and  winding  sheets.  Two  curious  facts  are  to 
be  noted  in  the  poor  accounts  :  that  the  women  pau- 
pers were  almost  invariably  "  very  comfortable  on  it 
for  clothes,"  as  were  other  women  of  that  dress-loving 
day  ;  and  that  liquor  was  frequently  supplied  to  both 
male  and  female  paupers  by  the  town.  Sometimes 
ten  gallons  apiece,  a  very  consoling  amount,  was 
given  in  a  year.  I  have  also  noted  the  frequent  pres- 
ence on  the  poor-list  of  what  are  termed  "  French 
Neuterls."  These  were  Acadians — the  neighbors  and 
compatriots  of  Evangeline — feeble  folk,  who,  void 
of  romance,  succumbed  in  despair  to  exile  and  home- 
sickness, a  new  language  and  a  new  manner  of  living, 
and  yielded  weakly  to  work  as  servants  when  they 
had  no  courage  to  maintain  homes.  New  England 
paupers  lived  to  a  good  old  age.  I  have  been  told 
that  the  unhappy  fate  of  one  of  these  town-poor — an 
Acadian — was  traced  for  over  thirty  years  in  the  town 
records  of  her  sale.  In  1767  there  were  twenty-one 
paupers  in  Dan  vers,  Mass.,  and  their  average  age  was 


106  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

eiglity-four  years,  thus  apparently  offering  proof  of 
good  rum  and  good  usage  from  the  town.  There  was 
also  an  hereditary  pauperism.  In  Salem  a  certain 
family  always  had  some  of  its  members  on  the  list  of 
town-poor  from  the  year  1721  to  1848  ;  and  perhaps 
they  found  better  homes  through  "living  around" 
than  in  trying  to  support  themselves. 

^  Criminals  were  also  sold  into  service  to  work  out 
their  sentences.  Thus  did  the  practical  settlers  at- 
tempt to  carry  out  one  of  Sir  Thomas  More's  Utopian 
notions.  Upon  the  whole,  I  think  I  should  rather 
have  a  Nipmuck  squaw  cooking  in  my  kitchen,  or  a 
Pequot  warrior  digging  in  my  garden,  than  to  have  a 
whit^  burglar  or  ruffian  in  either  situation. 

^  It  is  well  to  observe  in  passing  that  no  gingerly 
nicety  of  regard  in  calling  those  who  served  by  any 
other  name  than  servant,  was  shown  or  heeded  in 
olden  times.  They  believed  with  St.  Paul,  "  Art  thou 
called  being  a  servant  ?  Care  not  for  it."  All  hired 
workers  in  the  house,  hired  laborers  in  the  field,  those 
contracting  to  w^ork  under  a  master  at  any  trade  for 
a  period  of  time,  apprentices,  and  many  whom  we 
should  now  term  agents  or  stewards,  were  then  called 
servants,  and  signed  contracts  as  servants,  and  did  not 
appear  at  all  insulted  by  being  termed  servants. 


IV 

HOME  INTEEIOES 

It  is  easy  to  gain  a  definite  notion  of  tlie  furnish- 
ing of  colonial  houses  from  a  contemporary  and  reli- 
able source — the  inventories  of  the  estates  of  the  col- 
onists. These  are,  of  course,  still  preserved  in  court 
records.  As  it  was  customary  in  early  days  to  enu- 
merate with  much  minuteness  the  various  articles 
of  furniture  contained  in  each  room,  instead  of  clas- 
sifying or  aggregating  them,  we  have  the  outlines  of 
a  clear  picture  of  the  household  belongings  of  that 
day. 

The  first  room  beyond  the  threshold  of  the  door  that 
one  finds  named  in  the  houses  "  of  the  richer  soi-t," 
is  the  entry.  This  was  apparently  always  bare  of 
furniture,  and  indeed  well  it  might  be,  for  it  was  sel- 
dom aught  but  a  vestibule  to  the  rest  of  the  house, 
containing,  save  the  staircase,  but  room  enough  to 
swing  the  front  door  in  opening.  Dr.  Lyon  gives  the 
inventory  of  John  Salmon  of  Boston  in  the  year  1750 
as  the  earliest  record  which  he  has  found  of  the  use 
of  the  word  hall  instead  of  entry,  as  we  now  employ  it. 
In  the  Boston  Neios  Letter,  thirty  one  years  earlier, 
on  August   24th,   1719,  I  find  this  advertisement: 


108  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

*'  Fine  Glass  Lamps  &  Lanthoms  well  gilt  and  painted 
both  Convex  and  Plain.  Being  suitable  for  Halls, 
staircases,  or  other  Passage  ways,  at  the  Glass  Shop 
in  Queen  Street."  This  advertisement  is,  however, 
exceptional.  The  hall  in  Puritan  houses  was  not  a 
passageway,  it  was  the  living-room,  the  keeping-room, 
the  dwelling-room,  the  sitting-room ;  in  it  the  family 
sat  and  ate  their  meals — in  it  they  lived.  Let  us  see 
what  was  the  furniture  of  a  Puritan  home-room  in 
early  days,  and  what  its  value.  The  inventory  of  the 
possessions  of  Theophilus  Eaton,  Governor  of  the 
New  Haven  colony,  is  often  quoted.  At  the  time  of 
his  death,  in  1657,  he  had  in  his  hall, 

*' A  drawing  Table  &  a  round  table,  £1.18s. 
A  cubberd  &  2  long  formes,  14s. 
A  cubberd  cloth  &  cushions,  13s.;  4  setwork  cushions 

12s.  £1.5. 
6  greene  cushions,  12s;  a  greate  chaire  with  needleworke, 

13s.  £1.5. 
2  high  chaires  set  work,  20s ;  4  high  stooles  set  worke, 

26s  8d  £6.6.8. 
4  low  chaires  set  worke,  6s  8d,  £1.6.8. 
2  low  stooles  set  worke,  10s. 

2  Turkey  Carpette,  £2;  6  high  joyne  stooles,  6s.  £2.6. 
A  pewter  cistern  &  candlestick,  4s. 
A  pr  of  great  brass  Andirons,  12s. 
A  pr  of  small  Andirons,  6s  8d. 
A  pr  of  doggs,  2s  6d. 
A  pr  of  tongues  fire  pan  &  bellowes,  7s." 

Now,  this  was  a  very  liberally  furnished  living-room. 
There  were  plenty  of  seats  for  diners  and  loungers,  if 
Puritans  ever  lounged  ;  two  long  forms  and  a  dozen 
Btools  of  various  heights,  with  green  or  embroidered 


HOME  INTERIORS  109 

cushions,  upon  which  to  sit  while  at  the  Governor's 
board ;  and  seven  chairs,  gay  with  needlework  covers, 
to  draw  around  his  fireplace  with  its  shining  para- 
phernalia of  various  sized  andirons,  tongs,  and  bellows. 
The  low,  heavy-raftered  room  with  these  plentiful 
seats,  the  tables  with  their  Turkey  covers,  the  pictu- 
resque cupboard  with  its  rich  cloth,  and  its  display  of 
the  Governor's  silver  plate,  all  aglow  with  the  light 
of  a  great  wood  fire,  make  a  pretty  picture  of  com- 
fortable simplicity,  pleasant  of  contemplation  in  our 
bric-a-brac  filled  days,  a  fit  setting  for  the  figures  of 
the  Governor,  "  New  England's  glory  full  of  warmth 
and  light,"  and  his  dearest,  greatest,  best  of  tem- 
poral enjoyments,  his  "  vertuous,  prudent  and  pray- 
erful wife." 

Contemporary  inventories  make  more  clear  and 
more  positive  still  this  picture  of  a  planter's  home- 
room, for  similar  furniture  is  found  in  all.  All  the 
halls  had  cisterns  for  water  or  for  wine  (and  I  fancy 
they  stood  on  the  small  table  usually  mentioned) ; 
all  had  a  table  for  serving  meals;  a  majority  had 
the  cupboard;  a  few  had  "picktures"  or  "looke- 
ing  glasses  ; "  very  rarely  a  couch  or  "day-bed "  was 
seen ;  some  had  "  lanthorns  "  as  well  as  candlesticks  ; 
others  a  spinning-wheel  for  the  good  wife,  when  she 
"  keepit  close  the  house  and  birlit  at  the  wheel." 

Chairs  were  a  comparatively  rare  form  of  furniture 
in  New  England  in  early  colonial  days>  nor  were  they 
frequently  seen  in  humble  English  homes  of  that  date. 
Stools  and  forms  were  the  common  seats.  Turned, ' 
wainscot^  and  covered-  ^li«i?^ft  ^2!^  jhe  three  distinct 


110  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

types  mentioned  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Turned 
chairs  are  shown  in  good  examples  in  what  are  known 
as  the  Carver  and  Brewster  chairs,  now  preserved  in 
Pilgrim  Hall  in  Plymouth.  The  president's  chair  at 
Harvard  College  is  another  ancient  turned  chair. 

The  seats  of  many  of  these  chairs,  jstfiie.  of  flags 
and  rushes.  The  bark  of  the  elm  and  bass  trees  was 
also  used  for  bottoming  chairs. 

The  wainscot  chairs  were  all  of  wood,  seats  as 
well  as  backs,  usually  of  oak.  They  were  frequently 
carved  or  panelled.  One  now  in  Pilgrim  Hall  is 
known  as  the  Winslow  chair.  Another  fine  specimen 
in  carved  oak  is  in  the  Essex  Institute  in  Salem. 
Carved  chairs  were  owned  only  by  persons  of  wealth 
or  high  standing,  and  were  frequently  covered  with 
"  redd  lether  "  or  "  Eusha  lether."  Sometimes  the 
leather  was  stamped  and  different  rich  fabrics  were 
employed  to  cover  the  seats.  "Turkey  wrought" 
chairs  are  frequently  mentioned.  Velvet  "  Irish 
stitch,"  red  cloth,  and  needlework  covers  are  named. 
Green  appeared  to  be,  however,  the  favorite  color. 

Cane  chairs  appeared  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
,  century.  It  is  said  that  the  use  of  cane  was  intro- 
l4uced  into  furniture  with  the  marriage  of  Charles  11. 
to  Catharine  of  Braganza. 

The  bow-legged  chair,  often  with  claw  and  ball 
foot,  came  into  use  in  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  "  Crowfoot "  and  "  eaglesfoot "  were  named 
in  inventories.     These  are  copies  of  Dutch  shapes. 

Easy-chairs  also  appeared  at  that  date,  usually  as 
part  of  the  bedroom  furniture,  and  were  covered  with 


HOME  INTERIORS  111 

the  stuffs  of  which  the  bed-hangings  and  window-cur- 
tains were  made,  such  as  "  China,"  "  callico,"  "  cam- 
blet,"  "harrateen." 

The  three-cornered  chair,  now  known  as  an  "As 
you  like  it "  chair,  appeared  in  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury under  the  names  of  triangle,  round-about,  and 
half-round  chair. 

The  chairs  known  now  as  Chippendale  may  date 
back  to  the  middle  of  the  century ;  Windsor  chairs, 
also  known  and  manufactured  in  Philadelphia  at  that 
date,  were  not  common  in  New  England  till  a  score 
of  years  later,  when  they  were  made  and  sold  in  vast 
numbers,  being  much  more  comfortable  than  the  old 
bannister  or  slat-backed  chairs  then  in  common  use. 

Another  piece  of  hall  furniture  deserves  special 
mention.  Dr.  Lyon  gives  these  names  of  cupboards 
found  in  New  England :  Cupboard,  small  cupboard, 
great  cupboard,  court  cupboard,  livery  cupboard,  side 
cupboard,  hanging  cupboard,  sideboard  cupboard,  and 
cupboard  with  drawers.  To  this  list  might  be  added 
comer  cupboard.  The  word  court  cupboard  is  found 
from  the  years  1647  to  1704.  It  was  a  high  piece 
of  furniture  with  an  enclosed  closet  or  drawers, 
originally  intended  to  display  plate,  and  was  the 
highest-priced  cupboard  found.  Upon  it  were  set,  in 
New  England,  both  glass  and  plate.  The  livery  cup- 
board, similar  in  its  uses,  seldom  had  an  enclosed 
portion.  "  Turn  pillar  cuberds,"  painted  and  carved 
cupboards,  were  found.  The  item  of  cupboard  in 
any  inventory  was  usually  accompanied  by  that 
of  a  cupboard   cloth.     This  latter  seemed   to   be 


112  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

the  most  elegant  and  luxurious  article  in  the  whole 
house.  Cupboard  cloths  of  hoUand,  "  laced,"  "  pan- 
tado,"  "  cambrick,"  "  kalliko,"  "  green  wrought  with 
silk  fringe  " — all  are  named.  Cushions  also,  "  to  set 
upon  a  cubberds  head,"  are  frequently  named.  They 
were  made  of  damask,  needlework,  velvet  or  cloth. 
A  comer  cupboard  was  apparently  a  small  affair ;  a 
japanned  one  is  named.  What  we  now  call  a  corner 
cupboard  was  then  known  as  a  beaufet. 

The  hall  was  naturally  on  one  side  of  the  entry  and 
opening  into  it.  On  the  other  side,  in  large  houses, 
was  the  parlor ;  this  room  was  sometimes  used  as  a 
dining-room,  sometimes  as  a  state  bedroom.  It  fre- 
quently held,  in  addition  to  furniture  like  that  of 
the  hall,  a  chest  or  chests  of  drawers  to  hold  the 
family  linen,  and  also  that  family  idol — the  best  bed. 

Of  the  exact  shape  and  height  of  the  bedsteads 
used  by  the  early  colonists,  I  find  no  accurate  nor  very 
suggestive  descriptions.  The  terms  used  in  wills,  in- 
ventories, and  letters  seem  too  vague  and  curt  to  give 
us  a  correct  picture.  "What  was  the  "  half -headed 
bedstead  "  left  with  "  Curtaince  &  Yalance  of  Dor- 
nix  "  by  will  by  Simon  Eire  in  Boston  in  1658  ?  Or, 
to  give  a  fuller  description  of  a  similar  one  in  the  sale 
of  furniture  of  the  King's  Arms  in  Boston,  in  1651, 
"  one  half -headed  Bedsted  with  Blew  Pillars."  I 
fancy  they  were  bedsteads  with  moderately  high  head- 
boards. It  is  easy  enough  to  obtain  full  items  of  the 
bed  itself  and  the  bed-furniture,  its  coverings  and 
hangings.  We  read  of  "  ffether  beds,"  "  flocke  beds," 
"  downe  bedds,"  "wool  beds,"  and  even  "  charf  beds," 


HOME  INTERIORS  113 

the  latter  worth  but  three  shillings  apiece,  all  of  im- 
portance enough  to  be  named  in  wills  and  left  with  as 
much  dignity  of  bequest  as  Shakespeare's  famous 
*' second-best  bed."  Even  so  influential  a  man  as 
Thomas  Dudley  did  not  disdain  to  leave  by  specifica- 
tion to  his  daughter  Pacy  a  "  ffeather  beed  &  boulster." 
In  1666  Nicholas  Upsall,  of  Boston,  left  a  "  Bedstead 
fitted  with  a  Kope  Matt  &  Curtains  to  it."  In  March, 
1687,  Sewall  wrote  to  London  for  "  White  Fustian 
Drawn  enough  for  curtains,  vallen  counterpaine  for  a 
bed  &  half  %,  duz  chaires  with  four  threeded  green 
worsted  to  work  it."  In  1691  we  find  him  writing  for 
"Fringe  for  the  Fustian  bed  &  half  a  duz  Chairs. 
Six  yards  and  a  half  for  the  vallons,  fifteen  yards  for 
6  chairs  two  Inches  deep  ;  12  yards  half  inch  deep." 
This  wrought  fustian  bed  was  certainly  handsome. 

By  revolutionary  times  we  read  such  items  as  these : 
"  Neet  sette  bed,"  "  Very  genteel  red  and  white  cop- 
perplate Cottonbed  with  Squab  and  Window  Curtains 
Fring'd  and  made  in  the  NeAvest  Taste,"  "  Sacken* 
&  Corded  Beds  and  a  Pallat  Bed,"  "Very  Hand- 
some Flower'd  Crimson  worsted  damask  carv'd  and 
rais'd  Teaster  Bed  &  Curtains  compleat,"  "A  Four 
Post  Bedstead  of  Mahogany  on  Casters  with  Carved 
Foot  Posts,  Callico  Curtains  to  Ditto  &  Window 
Curtains  to  Match,  and  a  Green  Harrateen  Cornish 
Bed."  Harrateen,  a  strong,  stiff  woollen  material, 
formed  the  most  universal  bed  hanging.  Trundle- 
beds  or  truckle-beds  were  used  from  the  earliest 
days.     So  there  was  variety  in  plenty. 

A  form  of  bedstead  called  a  slawbank  was  common 
8 


114  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

enough  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and  Penn- 
sylvania until  this  century.  They  were  more  rarely 
found  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  and  as  I  do 
not  know  what  they  were  called  in  New  England,  we 
will  give  them  the  Dutch  name  slawbank,  from  sloap- 
hancJce,  a  sleeping-bench.  A  slawbank  was  the  proto- 
type of  our  modem  folding-bed.  It  was  an  oblong 
frame  with  a  network  of  rope.  This  frame  was  fast- 
ened at  one  end  to  the  wall  with  heavy  hinges,  and  at 
night  it  was  lowered  to  a  horizontal  position,  and  the 
unhinged  end  was  supported  on  heavy  wooden  turned 
legs  which  fitted  'into  sockets  in  the  frame.  When 
not  in  use  the  bed  was  hooked  up  against  the  wall, 
and  doors  like  closet  doors  were  closed  over  it,  or 
curtains  were  drawn  over  it  to  conceal  it.  It  was 
usually  placed  in  the  kitchen,  and  upon  it  slept  good- 
man  and  goodwife.  I  know  of  several  slawbanks 
still  in  old  Narragansett,  and  one  in  a  colonial  house 
in  Shrewsbury,  Mass.  A  similar  one  may  be  seen  at 
Deerfield  Memorial  Hall.  It  is  hung  around  with 
blue  serge  curtains.  I  have  seen  no  advertisements 
of  slawbanks  under  any  name  in  New  England  news- 
papers, unless  the  "  bedstead  in  a  painted  press "  in 
the  Boston  Gazette  of  November,  1750,  may  be  one. 

The  bed  furniture  was  of  much  importance  in  old- 
en days,  and  the  coverlet  was  fi*equently  mentioned 
separately.  Margaret  Lake,  of  Ipswich,  in  1662,  so 
named  a  "Tapestry  coverlet"  worth  <£4.  Susannah 
Compton  had  at  about  the  same  date  a  "  Yearne 
Courlead."  "  Strieked  couerlids  "  appear,  and  Adam 
Hunt,  of  Ipswich,  had  in   1671    "an    embroadured 


HOME  INTERIORS  115 

couerled."  "  Happgings  " — coarse  common  coverlets 
— are  also  natned.  In  1716,  on  September  24tli,  in 
the  Boston  News  Letter^  the  word  counterpane  first 
appears.  "  India  counterpins  "  often  were  advertised, 
and  cheney,  harrataen,  and  camlet  coverlets  or  coun- 
terpanes were  made  to  match  the  bed-hangings. 

A  pair  of  sheets  was  furnished  in  1628  to  each 
Massachusetts  Bay  colonist.  This  was  a  small  allow- 
ance, but  quite  as  full  as  the  average  possession  of 
sheets  by  other  colonists.  Cotton  sheets  were  not 
plentiful;  flaxen  or  "fleishen"  sheets,  "canvas" 
sheets,  "  noggan  "  sheets,  "  towsheets,"  and  "  nim- 
ming"  sheets  (mentioned  by  Lechford  in  his  note- 
book in  1640)  were  all  of  linen.  Flannel  sheets  also 
were  made,  and  may  appear  in  inventories  under  the 
name  of  rugs,  and  thus  partially  explain  the  untidy 
absence,  even  among  the  possessions  of  wealthy  citi- 
zens, of  sheets.  "  Straken  "  sheets  were  of  kersey. 
After  spinning  became  fashionable,  and  flax  was 
raised  in  more  abundance,  homespun  sheets  were 
made  in  large  quantities,  and  owned  by  all  respectable 
householders.  "  Twenty  and  one  pair  "  was  no  un- 
usual number  to  appear  in  an  inventory. 

There  were  plenty  of  "  Aether  boulsters,"  "  shafe 
boulsters,"  '*  wool  bolsters  ;"  and  John  Walker  had  in 
1659  a  "  Thurlinge  Boulster,"  and  each  household 
had  many  pillows.  The  word  bear  was  universally 
used  to  denote  a  pillow-case.  It  was  spelled  ber,  beer, 
beir,  beare  and  berr.  In  1689  the  value  of  a  "  peler- 
beare  "  in  an  inventory  was  given  at  three  shillings. 
In    1664    Susannah    Compton    had  linen    "pillow 


116  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

coates."  Pillow  covers  also  were  named,  and  pillow 
clothes,  but  pillow  bear  was  the  term  m*ost  commonly 
applied. 

The  following  list  of  varieties  of  chests  is  given  by 
Dr.  Lyon :  Joined  chests,  wainscot  chests,  board 
chests,  spruce  chests,  oak  chests,  carved  chests, 
chests  with  one  or  two  drawers,  cypress  chests. 
Joined  and  wainscot  chests  were  framed  chests  with 
panels,  distinguished  clearly  from  the  board  chests, 
made  of  plain  boards.  The  latter  were  often  called 
plain  chests,  the  former  panel  chests.  Carved  chests 
were  much  rarer.  William  Bradford,  of  Ply- 
mouth, had  one  in  1657  worth  XI.  Dr.  Lyon  also 
gives  as  possibly  being  carved  these  items  :  "  wrought 
chest,"  "  ingraved,"  "  settworke,"  and  "  inlayed  chests." 
Chests  were  also  painted,  usually  on  the  parts  in 
relief  on  the  carving,  the  colors  being  generally 
black  and  red.  Chests  with  drawers  were  not  rare  in 
New  England.  A  good  specimen  may  be  seen  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society.  They 
were  distinct  in  shape  from  what  we  now  call  chests 
of  drawers.  Nearly  all  the  oak  chests  were  quartered 
to  show  the  grain,  and  "  drop  ornaments  "  and  "  egg 
ornaments  "  of  various  woods  were  applied.  Cypress 
and  cedar  chests  were  used  then,  as  now,  to  protect 
garments  from  moths.  Governor  Bellingham  had 
one  of  the  former  worth  £5.  Ship  chests  or  sea 
chests  were,  of  course,  plentiful  enough.  Cristowell 
Gallup  had  in  1655  a  "  sea  chest  and  a  great  white 
chest."  These  sea  chests  being  made  of  cheap 
materials,  have  seldom  been  preserved.    There  would 


HOME  INTERIORS  117 

appear  to  be  in  addition  to  the  various  chests  al- 
ready named,  a  hanging  chest.  In  1737  Sir  Will- 
iam Pepperell  wrote  to  England  for  "4  dozen  pair 
Snipe  bills  to  hang  small  chissts."  This  may  possibly 
refer  to  snipe-bill  hinges  to  be  placed  on  chests. 

It  is  safe  to  infer  that  almost  every  emigrant 
brought  to  America  among  his  household  belongings 
at  least  one  chest.  It  was  of  use  as  a  travelling 
trunk,  a  packing-box,  and  a  piece  of  furniture.  Many 
colonists  had  several.  Jane  Humphreys  had  and 
named  in  her  will  "  my  little  chest,  my  great  old 
chest,  my  great  new  chest,  my  lesser  small  box,  my 
biggest  small  box  " — and  she  needed  them  all  to  hold 
her  finery. 

Chests  also  were  made  in  New  England.  Pine  was 
used  in  the  backs  and  drawers  of  chests  of  New 
England  make.     English  chests  were  wholly  of  oak. 

In  the  Memorial  Hall  at  Deerfield  may  be  seen 
many  fine  specimens  of  old  chests,  forming,  indeed,  a 
complete  series,  showing  the  various  shapes  and 
ornamentations. 

Another  furnishing  of  the  parlor  was  the  scrutoire. 
Under  the  spellings  scritoire,  scredoar,  screetor, 
scrittore,  scriptore,  scrutoir,  scritory,  scrutore,  es- 
crutor,  scriptoree,  this  useful  piece  of  furniture  ap- 
pears constantly  in  the  inventories  of  men  of  wealth 
in  the  colonies  from  the  year  1669  till  a  century  later. 
Judge  Sewall  tells  of  losing  the  key  of  his  "  scrittoir." 
The  definition  of  the  word  in  Phillips's  "New  "World 
of  Words,"  1696,  was  "Scrutoire,  a  sort  of  large 
Cabinet  with  several  Boxes,  and  a  place  for  Pen,  Ink 


118  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

and  Paper,  the  door  of  which  opening  downward  and 
resting  upon  Frames  that  are  to  be  drawn  out  and 
put  back,  serves  for  a  Table  to  write  on."  This 
description  would  appear  to  identify  the  "  scrutoire  " 
with  what  we  now  call  a  writing-desk  ;  and  it  was 
called  interchangeably  by  these  two  names  in  wills. 
They  were  made  with  double  bow  fronts  and  box 
fronts,  of  oak,  pine,  mahogany,  cherry ;  and  some 
had  cases  of  shelves  for  books  on  the  top,  forming 
what  we  now  call  a  secretary — our  modern  render- 
ing of  the  word  scrutoire.  These  book  scrutoires 
frequently  had  glass  doors. 

When  Judith  Sewall  was  about  to  be  married,  in 
1720,  her  father  was  much  pleased  with  his  prospective 
son-in-law  and  evidently  determined  to  give  the  pair 
a  truly  elegant  wedding  outfit.  The  list  of  the  house- 
furnishings  which  he  ordered  from  England  has  been 
preserved,  and  may  be  quoted  as  showing  part  of  the 
"  setting-off"  in  furniture  of  a  rich  bride  of  the  day. 
It  reads  thus : 

"  Curtains  &  Vallens  for  a  Bed  with  Counterpane  Head 
Cloth  and  Tester  made  of  good  yellow  waterd  worsted 
camlet  with  Triming  well  made  and  Bases  if  it  be  the 
Fashion.  Send  also  of  the  ^ame  Camlet  &  Triming  as 
may  be  enough  to  make  Cushions  for  the  Chamber 
Chairs. 

"A  good  fine  large  Chintz  Quilt  well  made. 

"  A  true  Looking  Glass  of  Black  Walnut  Frame  of  the 
Newest  Fashion  if  the  Fashion  be  good,  as  good  as  can 
be  bought  for  five  or  six  pounds. 


HOME  INTERIORS  119 

"  A  second  Looking  Glass  as  good  as  can  be  bought 
for  four  or  five  pounds,  same  kind  of  frame. 

"  A  Duzen  of  good  Black  Walnut  Chairs  fine  Cane  with 
a  Couch. 

*'  A  Duzen  of  Cane  Chairs  of  a  Different  Figure  and  a 
great  Chair  for  a  Chamber  ;  all  black  Walnut. 

"  One  bell-metal  Skillet  of  two  Quarts,  one  ditto  one 
Quart. 

"  One  good  large  Warming  Pan  bottom  and  cover  fit 
for  an  Iron  handle. 

**  Four  pair  of  strong  Iron  Dogs  with  Brass  heads  about 
5  or  6  shillings  a  pair. 

"A  Brass  Hearth  for  a  Chamber  with  Dogs  Shovel 
Tongs  &  Fender  of  the  newest  Fashion  (the  Fire  is  to  ly 
upon  Iron). 

"A  strong  Brass  Mortar  That  will  hold  about  a  Quart 
with  a  Pestle. 

"  Two  pair  of  large  Brass  sliding  Candlesticks  about  4 
shillings  a  Pair. 

**  Two  pair  of  large  Brass  Candlesticks  not  sliding  of 
the  newest  Fashion  about  5  or  6  shillings  a  pair. 

**  Four  Brass  Snuffers  with  stands. 

"  Six  small  strong  Brass  Chafing  dishes  about  4  shil- 
lings apiece.  ' 

"  One  Brass  basting  Ladle  ;  one  larger  Brass  Ladle. 

"One  pair  of  Chamber. Bellows  with  Brass  Noses. 

"  One  small  hair  Broom  sutable  to  the  Bellows. 

"  One  Duzen  of  large  hard-mettal  Pewter  Plates  new 
fashion,  weighing  about  fourteen  pounds. 

"  One  Duzen  hard-mettal  Pewter  Porringers. 

"  Four  Duzen  of  Small  glass  Salt  Cellars  of  white  glass  ; 
Smooth  not  wrought,  and  without  a  foot. 

"  A  Duzen  of  good  Ivory-hafted  Knives  and  Forks.'* 


120  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

»  The  floors  of  colonial  houses  were  sometimes  sanded, 
but  were  not  carpeted,  for  a  carpet  in  early  days 
was  not  a  floor  covering,  but  the  covering  of  a  table 
or  cupboard.  In  1646  an  inquiry  was  made  into  some 
losses  on  the  wreck  of  the  "  Angel  Gabriel."  A  servant 
took  oath  that  Mr.  John  Coggeswell  "  had  a  Turky- 
work'd  Carpet  in  old  England  which  he  commonly 
used  to  lay  on  his  Parlour  Table  ;  and  this  Carpet  was 
put  aboard  among  my  Maisters  goods  and  came  safe 
ashore  to  the  best  of  my  K-emembrance."  Another 
man  testified  that  he  did  "  frequentlie  see  a  Turkey- 
work  Carpet  &  heard  them  say  it  used  to  lay  upon 
their  Parlour  Table."  Dornix,  arras,  cloth,  calico, 
and  broadcloth  carpets  are  named.  Sewall  tells  of 
an  "  Irish  stitch't  hanging  made  a  carpet  of."  Samuel 
Danforth  gave,  in  1661,  a  "  Convenient  Carpet  for  the 
table  of  the  meeting  house."  In  1735,  in  the  adver- 
tisement of  the  estate  of  Jonathan  Barnard,  "one 
handsome  Large  Carpet  9  Foot  0  inches  by  6  foot  6 
inches  "  was  named.  This  was,  I  fancy,  a  floor  cover- 
ing. In  the  Boston  Gazette  of  November,  1748,  "  two 
large  Matts  for  floors  "  were  advertised — an  excep- 
tional instance  in  the  use  of  the  word  mat.  Large 
floor-carpets  were  advertised  the  following  year,  and 
in  1755  a  "  Variety  of  List  Carpets  wide  &  Narrow," 
and  "Scotch  Carpets  for  Stairs."  In  1769  came 
"  Persia  Carpets  3  yards  Wide."  In  1772,  in  the  Bos- 
ton Evening  Post,  "  A  very  Eich  Wilton  Carpet  18  ft 
by  13"  was  named.  The  following  year  "Painted 
Canvass  Floor  Cloth  "  was  named.  This  was  doubt- 
less the  "  Oyl  Cloth  for  Floors  and  Tables  "  of  the 


HOME   INTERIORS  121 

year  1762.  Oilcloth  had  been  kno^vn  in  England  a 
century  previously.  What  the  "  False  Carpets  "  ad- 
vertised on  June  7,  1762,  were  I  do  not  know. 
4>  The  walls  of  the  rooms  were  wainscoted  and 
painted.  Gurdon  Saltonstall  had  on  the  walls  of 
some  of  his  state-rooms  leathern  hangings  or  tapes- 
tries. We  find  wealthy  Sir  William  Pepperel  sending 
to  England,  in  1737,  the  draught  of  a  chamber  he  was 
furnishing,  and  writing,  "Geet  mock  Tapestry  or 
paint'd  Canvass  lay'd  in  Oyls  for  ye  same  and  send 
me."  In  1734  "  Paper  for  Rooms,"  and  a  little  later 
"  Rolled  Paper  for  Hanging  of  Rooms  "  were  adver- 
tised in  the  Boston  Neivs  Letter.  "  Statues  on  Paper  " 
were  soon  sold,  and  "Architraves  on  Roll  Paper"  and 
"  Landscape  Paper."  These  old  paper-hangings  were 
of  very  heavy  and  strong  materials,  close-grained, 
firm  and  durable.  The  rooms  of  a  few  wealthy  men 
were  hung  with  heavy  tapestries.  The  ceilings  usu- 
ally exposed  to  view  the  great  summer-tree  and  cross 
rafters,  sometimes  rough-hewn  and  still  showing  the 
marks  of  the  woodman's  axe.  But  little  decoration 
was  seen  overhead,  even  in  the  form  of  chandeliers ; 
sometimes  a  candle  beam  bore  a  score  of  candles,  or 
in  some  fine  houses,  such  as  the  Storer  mansion  in 
Boston,  great  ornamental  globes  of  glass  hung  from 
the  summer-tree. 

In  the  first  log  cabins  oiled  paper  was  placed  in 
windows.  We  find  more  than  one  colonist  writing  to 
England  for  that  semi-opaque  window-setting.  Soon 
glass  windows,  framed  in  lead,  were  sent  from  Lon- 
don and  Liverpool  and  Bristol,  ready  for  insertion  in 


122  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

the  walls  of  houses ;  and  at  an  early  day  sheets  of 
glass  came  to  Winthrop.  We  find,  by  Sewall's  time, 
that  the  houses  of  well-to-do  folk  all  had  "  quarrels 
of  glass  "  set  in  windows. 

The  flight  of  time  in  New  England  houses  was 
marked  without  doors  by  sun-dials ;  within,  by  noon- 
marks,  hour-glasses,  and  rarely  by  clepsydras,  or 
water-clocks. 

The  first  mention,  in  New  England  records,  of  a 
clock  is  in  Lechford's  note-book.  He  states  that  in 
1628  Joseph  Stratton  had  of  his  brother  a  clock  and 
watch,  and  that  Joseph  acknowledged  this,  but  re- 
fused to  pay  for  them  and  was  sued  for  payment. 
Hence  Lawyer  Lechford's  interest  in  the  articles  and 
mention  of  them.  In  1640  Henry  Parks,  of  Hart- 
ford, left  a  clock  by  will  to  the  church.  Li  the  in- 
ventory of  Thomas  Coteymore,  made  in  Charleston, 
in  1645,  his  clock  is  apprized  at  XI.  In  1657  there 
was  a  town-clock  in  Boston  and  a  man  appointed  to 
take  care  of  it.  In  1677  E.  Needham,  of  Lynn,  left  a 
"  striking  clock,  a  Larum  that  does  not  strike  and  a 
watch,"  valued  at  £5 — this  in  an  estate  of  «£1,117 
total.  Judge  Sewall  wrote,  in  1687,  "Got  home 
rather  before  12  Both  by  my  Clock  and  Dial." 

Clocks  must  have  become  rather  plentiful  in  the 
early  part  of  the  following  century,  for  in  1707  this 
advertisement  appeared  in  the  Boston  News  Letter  : 

**  To  all  gentlemen  and  others  :  There  is  lately  arrived 
in  Boston  by  way  of  Pennsylvania  a  Clock  maker.  If  any 
person  or  persons  hath  any  occasions  for  new  Clocks  or  to 


HOME  INTERIORS  123 

have  Old  Ones  turn'd  into  Pendulums,  or  any  other  thing 
either  in  making  or  mending,  they  can  go  to  the  Sign  of 
the  Clock  and  Dial  on  the  South  Side  of  the  Town  House." 

In  1712,  in  November,  appeared  in  the  Neius  Letter 
the  advertisement  of  a  man  who  "  performed  all  sorts 
of  New  Clocks  and  Watch  works,  vi^ :  30  hour 
Clocks,  Week  Clocks,  Month  Clocks,  Spring  Table 
Clocks,  Chime  Clocks,  quarter  Clocks,  quarter  Chime 
Clocks,  Church  Clocks,  Terret  Clocks  ; "  and  on  April 
16,  1716,  this  notice  appeared':  "  Lately  come  from 
London.  A  Parcel  of  very  Fine  Clocks.  They  go  a 
week  and  repeat  the  hour  when  PuU'd.  In  Japan 
Cases  or  Wall  Nutt." 

By  this  time,  in  the  inventory  or  "enroulment  "  of 
the  estate  of  any  person  of  note,  we  always  find  a 
clock  mentioned.  Increase  Mather  left  to  his  son 
Cotton  "  one  Pendilum  Clock."  Soon  appear  Japann'd 
clocks  and  Pullup  Clocks.  In  the  New  England 
Weekly  Journal  of  October,  1732,  the  fourth  prize  in 
the  Newport  lottery  was  announced  to  be  a  clock 
worth  £65.  "  A  Handsome  new  Eight  day  Clock 
which  shows  the  Moons  Age,  Strikes  the  Quarters  on 
Six  very  Tunable  Bells  &  is  in  a  Good  Japann'd  Case 
in  Imitation  of  Tortoise  Shell  &  Gold." 

This  advertisement  of  Edmund  Entwisle,  in  the 
Boston  News  Letter  of  November  18,  1742,  proves,  I 
think,  that  they  had  some  very  handsome  clocks  in 
those  days : 

"  A  Fine  Clock.  It  goes  8  or  9  days  with  once  wind- 
ing up.     And  repeats  the  Hour  it  struck  last  when  you 


124  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

pull  it.  The  Dial  is  13  inches  on  the  Square  &  Arched 
with  a  Semicircle  on  the  Top  round  which  is  a  strong 
Plate  with  this  Motto  (Time  shews  the  Way  of  Lifes 
Decay)  well  engraved  &  silver'd,  within  the  Motto  Ring 
it  shews  from  behind  two  Semispheres  the  Moons  Increase 
&  Decrease  by  two  curious  Painted  Faces  ornamented 
with  Golden  Stars  between  on  a  Blue  Ground,  and  a  white 
Circle  on  the  Outside  divided  into  Days  figured  at  every 
Third,  in  which  Divisions  is  shewn  the  Age  by  a  fix't  Index 
from  the  Top,  as  they  pass  by  the  great  Circle  is  divided 
into  three  Concentrick  Collums  on  the  outmost  of  which 
it  shews  the  Minute  of  each  Hour  and  the  Middlemost  the 
Hours  &c.  the  innermost  is  divided  into  31  equal  parts 
figur'd  at  every  other  on  which  is  shewn  the  Day  of  the 
Month  by  a  Hand  from  the  Dial  Plate  as  the  Hour  & 
Minute  is,  it  also  shews  the  Seconds  as  common  &  is  or- 
namented with  curious  Engravings  in  a  Most  Fashionable 
Manner.  The  case  is  made  of  very  Good  Mohogony  with 
Quarter  Collums  in  the  Body,  broke  in  the  Surface  with 
Raised  Pannels  with  Quarter  Rounds  burs  Bands  & 
Strings.  The  head  is  ornamented  with  Gilded  Capitalls 
Bases  &  Frise  with  New  fashioned  Balls  compos'd  of  Mo- 
hogony with  Gilt  Leaves  &  Flowers." 

I  do  not  quite  understand  this  description,  and  I 
know  I  could  never  have  told  the  correct  time  by  this 
clock,  but  surely  it  must  have  been  very  elegant  and 
costly. 

The  earliest  and  most  natural,  as  well  as  most 
plentiful,  illuminating  medium  for  the  colonists  was 
found  in  pine-knots.     Wood  says  : 

"  Out  of  these  Pines  is  gotten  the  Candlewood  that  is 
so  much  spoke  of  which  may  serve  as  a  shift  among  poore 


HOME  INTERIORS  125 

folks  but  I  cannot  commend  it  for  Singular  good  because 
it  is  something  sluttish  dropping  a  pitchy  kind  of  sub- 
stance where  it  stands." 

Higginson  wrote  in  1630,  "  Though  New  England 
has  no  tallow  to  make  candles  of  yet  by  abundance 
of  fish  thereof  it  can  afford  oil  for  lamps." 

Though  lamps  and  "lamp  yearne,"  or  wicks,  ap- 
pear in  many  an  early  invoice,  I  cannot  think  that 
they  were  extensively  used.  Betty  lamps  were  the 
earliest  form.  They  were  a  shallow  receptacle, 
usually  of  pewter,  iron,  or  brass,  circular  or  oval  in 
shape,  and  occasionally  triangular,  and  about  two  or 
three  inches  in  diameter,  with  a  projecting  nose  an 
inch  or  two  long.  When  in  use  they  were  filled 
with  tallow  or  grease,  and  a  wick  or  piece  of  twisted 
rag  was  placed  so  that  the  lighted  end  could  hang 
on  the  nose.  Specimens  can  be  seen  at  Deerfield 
Memorial  Hall.  I  have  one  with  a  hook  and  chain  by 
which  to  hang  it  up,  and  a  handled  hook  attached 
with  which  to  clean  out  the  grease.  These  lamps 
were  sometimes  called  "  brown-bettys,"  or  "  kials,"  or 
"  cruiseys."  A  phoebe  lamp  resembled  a  betty  lamp, 
but  had  a  shallow  cup  underneath  to  catch  the  drip- 
ping grease. 

Soon  candles  were  made  by  being  run  in  moulds, 
or  by  a  tedious  process  of  dipping.  The  fragrant 
bayberry  furnished  a  pale  green  wax,  which  Kobert 
Beverly  thus  described  in  1705 : 

"  A  pale  brittle  wax  of  a  curious  green  color,  which 
by  refining  becomes  almost  transparent.     Of  this  they 


126  OLD  NEW  ENGLAl^D 

make  candles  which  are  never  greasy  to  the  touch,  nor 
melt  with  lying  iu  the  hottest  weather  ;  neither  does  the 
snuff  of  these  ever  offend  the  smell,  like  that  of  a  tallow 
candle  ;  but,  instead  of  being  disagreeable,  if  an  ac- 
cident puts  a  candle  out,  it  yields  a  pleasant  fragrancy 
to  all  that  are  in  the  room ;  insomuch  that  nice  people 
often  put  them  out  on  purpose  to  have  the  incense  of  the 
expiring  snuffl" 

The  Abbe  Eobin  and  other  travellers  gave  similar 
testimony.  Bayberry  wax  was  a  standard  farm  pro- 
duction wherever  bayberries  grew,  and  was  advertised 
in  Kew  England  papers  until  this  century.  I  entered 
within  a  year  a  single-storied  house  a  few  miles  from 
Plymouth  Kock,  where  an  aged  descendant  of  the 
Pilgrims  earns  her  scanty  spending-money  by  making 
"  bayberry  taller,"  and  bought  a  cake  and  candles  of 
the  wax,  made  in  precisely  the  method  of  her  an- 
cestors ;  and  I  too  can  add  my  evidence  as  to  the 
pure,  spicy  perfume  of  this  New  England  incense. 

The  growth  of  the  whaling  trade,  and  consequent 
use  of  spermaceti,  of  course  increased  the  facilities  for, 
and  the  possibilities  of,  house  illumination.  In  1686 
Governor  Andros  petitioned  for  a  commission  for  a 
voyage  after  "  Sperma-Coeti  "Whales,"  but  not  till 
the  middle  of  the  following  century  did  spermaceti 
become  of  common  enough  use  to  bring  forth  such 
notices  as  this,  in  the  Boston  Independent  Advertiser 
of  January,  1749 : 

"  Sperma-Ceti  Candles,  exceeding  all  others  for  Beauty 
Sweetness  of  Scent  when  Extinguished.     Duration  being 


yf  HOME  INTERIORS  127 

more  than  Double  with  Tallow  Candles  of  Equal  Size. 
Dimensions  of  Flame  near  4  Times  more.  Emitting  a 
Soft  easy  Expanding  Light,  bringing  the  object  close  to 
the  Sight,  rather  than  causing  the  Eye  to  trace  after 
them,  as  all  Tallow  Candles  do,  from  a  Constant  Dimnes 
which  they  produce.  One  of  these  Candles  serves  the 
use  and  purpose  of  3  Tallow  Candles,  and  upon  the 
"Whole  are  much  pleasanter  and  cheaper." 

These  candles  were  placed  in  candle-beams — rude 
chandeliers  of  crossed  sticks  of  wood  or  strips  of 
metal  with  sockets  ;  in  sliding  stands,  in  sconces, 
which  were  also  called  prongs  or  candle-arms.  The 
latter  appeared  in  the  inventories  of  all  genteel  folk, 
and  decorated  the  walls  of  all  genteel  parlors. 

Candlesticks  and  snuffers  were  found  in  every 
house ;  the  latter  were  called  by  various  names,  the 
word  snit  or  suite  being  the  most  curious.  It  is  from 
the  old  English  snyten,  to  blow,  and  was  originally  a 
verb — to  suite  the  candle,  or  put  it  out.  In  the  in- 
ventory of  property  of  John  Gager,  of  Norwich,  in 
1703,  appears  "  One  Snit." 

Snuffer-boats  or  slices  were  snuffer-trays.  Another 
curious  illuminating  appurtenance  was  called  a  save- 
all  or  candle-wedge.  It  was  a  little  frame  of  rings  or 
cups  with  pins,  by  which  our  frugal  ancestors  held 
up  the  last  dying  bit  of  burning  candle.  They  were 
sometimes  of  pewter  with  iron  pins,  sometimes  wholly 
of  brass  or  iron.  They  have  nearly  all  disappeared 
since  new  and  more  extravagant  methods  of  illumina- 
tion prevail. 


128  OLD  NEW    ENGLAND 

The  argand  lamps  of  Jefferson's  invention  and 
the  various  illuminating  and  heating  contrivances 
of  Count  Bumford  must  have  been  welcome  to  the 
colonists. 

The  discomfort  of  a  colonial  house  in  winter-time  has 
been  ably  set  forth  by  Charles  Francis  Adams  in  his 
"Three  Episodes  of  Massachusetts  History."  Down 
the  great  chimneys  blew  the  icy  blasts  so  fiercely  that 
Cotton  Mather  noted  on  a  January  Sabbath,  in  1697, 
as  he  shivered  before  ''  a  great  Fire,  that  the  Juices 
forced  out  at  the  end  of  short  billets  of  wood  by  the 
heat  of  the  flame  on  which  they  were  laid,  yett  froze 
into  Ice  on  their  coming  out."  Judge  Sewall  wrote, 
twenty  years  later,  "  An  Extraordinary  Cold  Storm 
of  Wind  and  Snow.  Bread  was  frozen  at  Lords 
Table.  .  .  .  Though  'twas  so  Cold  yet  John 
Tuckerman  was  baptized.  At  six  oclock  my  ink 
freezes  so  that  I  can  hardly  write  by  a  good  fire  in 
my  Wives  Chamber " — and  the  pious  man  adds  (we 
hope  with  truth)  "  Yet  was  very  Comfortable  at  Meet- 
ing." Cotton  Mather  tells,  in  his  pompous  fashion,  of 
a  cold  winter's  day  four  years  later.  "  Tis  Dreadful 
cold,  my  ink  glass  in  my  standish  is  froze  and  splitt 
in  my  very  stove.  My  ink  in  my  pen  suffers  a  con- 
gelation." If  sitting-rooms  were  such  refrigerators, 
we  cannot  wonder  that  the  chilled  colonists  wished 
to  sleep  in  beds  close  curtained  with  heavy  woollen 
stuffs,  or  in  slaw-bank  beds  by  the  kitchen  tire. 

The  settlers  builded  as  well  as  they  knew  to  keep 
their  houses  warm;  and  while  the  vast  and  virgin 
forests   supplied  abundant  and    accessible  wood  for 


HOME  INTERIOKS  129 

fuel,  Governor  Eaton's  nineteen  great  fireplaces  and 
Parson  Davenport's  thirteen,  could  be  well  filled; 
but  by  1744  Franklin  could  write  of  these  big  chim- 
neys as  the  "  fireplace  of  our  fathers ; "  for  the  for- 
ests had  all  disappeared  in  the  vicinity  of  the  towns, 
and  the  chimneys  had  shrunk  in  size.  Sadly  did 
the  early  settlers  need  warmer  houses,  for,  as  all 
antiquarian  students  have  noted,  in  olden  days  the 
cold  was  more  piercing,  began  to  nip  and  pinch  ear- 
lier in  November,  and  lingered  further  into  spring ; 
winter  rushed  upon  the  settlers  with  heavier  blasts 
and  fiercer  storms  than  we  now  have  to  endure. 
And,  above  all,  they  felt  with  sadder  force  "the 
dreary  monotony  of  a  New  England  winter,  which 
leaves  so  large  a  blank,  so  melancholy  a  death-spot, 
in  lives  so  brief  that  they  ought  to  be  all  summer- 
time." Even  John  Adams  in  his  day  so  dreaded  the 
tedious  bitter  New  England  winter  that  he  longed  to 
hibernate  like  a  dormouse  from  autumn  to  spring. 

As  the  forests  disappeared,  sea-coal  was  brought 
over  in  small  quantities,  and  stoves  appeared  for 
town  use.  By  1695  and  1700  we  find  Cotton  Mather 
and  Judge  Sewall  speaking  of  stoves  and  stove-rooms, 
and  of  chambers  warmed  by  stoves.  Ere  that  one 
John  Clark  had  patented  an  invention  for  "  saving 
and  warming  rooms,"  but  we  know  nothing  definite 
of  its  shape. 

Dutch  stoves  and  china  stoves  were  the  first  to  be 
advertised  in  New  England  papers  ;  then  "  Philadel- 
phia Fire  Stoves  "  —  what  we  now  term  Franklin 
grates.     "Wood  was  burned  in  these  grates.     "We  find 


130  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

clergymen,  until  after  Revolutionary  times,  having 
sixty  or  eighty  cords  of  hardwood  given  to  them  an- 
nually by  the  parish. 

Around  the  great  glowing  fireplace  in  an  old  New 
England  kitchen  centred  all  of  homeliness  and  com- 
fort that  could  be  found  in  a  New  England  home. 
The  very  aspect  of  the  domestic  hearth  was  pict- 
uresque, and  must  have  had  a  beneficent  influence. 
In  earlier  days  the  great  lug-pole,  or,  as  it  was  called 
in  England,  the  back-bar,  stretched  from  ledge  to 
ledge,  or  lug  to  lug,  high  up  the  yawning  chimney, 
and  held  a  motley  collection  of  pot-hooks  and  tram- 
mels, of  gib-crokes,  twicrokes,  and  hakes,  which  in 
turn  suspended  at  various  heights  over  the  fire,  pots, 
and  kettles  and  other  cooking  utensils.  In  the 
hearth-comers  were  displayed  skillets  and  trivets, 
peels  and  slices,  and  on  either  side  were  chimney- 
seats  and  settles.  Above — on  the  clavel-piece — were 
festooned  strings  of  dried  apples,  pumpkins,  and 
peppers. 

The  lug-pole,  though  made  of  green  wood,  some- 
times became  brittle  or  charred  by  too  long  use  over 
the  fire  and  careless  neglect  of  replacement,  and 
broke  under  its  weighty  burden  of  food  and  metal ; 
hence  accidents  became  so  frequent,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  precious  cooking  utensils,  and  even  to  the 
destruction  of  human  safety  and  life,  that  a  Yankee 
invention  of  an  iron  crane  brought  convenience  and 
simplicity,  and  added  a  new  grace  to  the  kitchen 
hearth. 

The  andirons  added  to  the  fireplace  their  homely 


HOME  INTERIORS  131 

charm.  Fire-dogs  appear  in  the  earliest  inventories 
under  many  names  of  various  spelling,  and  were  of 
many  metals — copper,  steel,  iron,  and  brass.  Some- 
times a  fireplace  had  three  sets  of  andirons  of  differ- 
ent sizes,  to  hold  logs  at  different  heights.  Cob  irons 
had  hooks  to  hold  a  spit  and  dripping-pan.  Some- 
times the  "  Handirons  "  also  had  brackets.  Creepers 
were  low  irons  placed  between  the  great  fire-dogs. 
They  are  mentioned  in  many  early  wills  and  lists  of 
possessions  among  items  of  fireplace  furnishings,  as, 
for  instance,  the  list  of  Captain  Tyng's  furniture, 
made  in  Boston  in  1653.  The  andirons  were  some- 
times very  elaborate,  with  claw  feet,  or  cast  in  the 
figure  of  a  negro,  a  soldier,  or  a  dog. 

In  the  Deerfield  Memorial  Hall  there  lives  in  per- 
fection of  detail  one  of  these  old  fireplaces — a  delight 
to  the  soul  of  the  antiquary.  Every  homely  utensil 
and  piece  of  fui'niture,  every  domestic  convenience 
and  inconvenience,  every  home-made  makeshift,  every 
cumbrous  and  clumsy  contrivance  of  the  old-time 
kitchen  here  may  be  found,  and  they  show  to  us,  as 
in  a  living  photograph,  the  home  life  of  those  olden 
days. 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS 

In  the  early  days  of  the  colonies  doubtless  the  old 
Anglo-Saxon  board  laid  on  trestles  was  used  for  a 
dining-table  instead  of  a  table  with  a  stationary  top. 
"  Table  bords  "  appear  in  early  New  England  wills, 
and  "  trestles  "  also.  "  Long  tables  "  and  "  drawing 
tables  "  were  next  named.  A  "  long  table  "  was  used 
as  a  dining-table,  and,  from  the  frequent  appearance 
of  two  forms  with  it,  was  evidently  used  from  both 
sides,  and  not  in  the  ancient  fashion  of  the  diners 
sitting  at  one  side  only.  A  drawing-table  was  an  ex- 
tension-table ;  it  could  by  an  arrangement  of  drop 
leaves  be  doubled  in  length.  A  fine  one  can  be  seen 
in  the  rooms  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society. 
Chair  tables  were  the  earliest  example,  in  fact  the 
prototype,  of  some  of  our  modern  extraordinary  "  com- 
bination "  furniture.  The  tops  were  usually  round, 
and  occasionally  large  enough  to  be  used  as  a  din- 
ing-table, and  when  turned  over  by  a  hinge  arrange- 
ment formed  the  back  of  the  chair.  "  Hundred  legged  " 
tables  had  flaps  at  either  end  which  turned  down  or 
were  held  up  in  place  by  a  bracket  composed  of  a  num- 
ber of  turned  perpendicular  supports  which  gave  to  it 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  133 

the  name  of  "  hundred  legs."  These  tables  were  fre- 
quently very  large ;  a  portion  of  the  top  of  one  in  the 
Connecticut  Historical  Society  is  seven  feet  four 
inches  wide.  Tea-tables  came  with  tea;  they  were  ad- 
vertised in  the  Boston  Nevjs  Letter  in  1712.  Occa- 
sionally we  find  mention  of  a  curious  and  unusual 
table,  such  as  the  one  named  in  the  effects  of  Sir 
Francis  Bernard,  which  were  sold  September  11, 
1770 :  "  Three  tables  forming  a  horseshoe  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Fire." 

As  a  table  was  in  early  days  a  board,  so  a  table- 
cloth was  a  board-cloth ;  and  ere  it  was  a  tablecloth 
it  was  table-clothes.  Cristowell  Gallup,  in  1655,  had 
"  1  Holland  board-cloth  ; "  and  William  Met  calf,  in 
1644,  had  a  "  diaper  board-cloth."  Another  Boston 
citizen  had  "broad-clothes."  Henry  Webb,  of  Bos- 
ton, named  in  his  will,  in  1660,  his  "  beste  Suite  of 
Damask  Table-cloath,  Napkins  &  cupboard-cloath." 
Others  had  holland  tablecloths  and  hoUand  square 
cloths  with  lace  on  them.  Arras  tablecloths  are  also 
named  in  1654,  and  cloths  enriched  with  embroidery 
in  colors.  The  witch  Ann  Hibbins  had  "  1  Holland 
table  cloth  edged  with  blewe,"  worth  twelve  shillings ; 
and  a  Hartford  gentleman  had,  in  1689,  a  "  table  Cloth 
wrought  with  red."  In  1728  "Hukkbuk  Tabling" 
was  advertised  in  the  Neiv  England  Weekly  Journal^ 
but  the  older  materials — damask,  holland,  and  dia- 
per— were  universally  used  then,  as  now. 

The  colonists  had  plenty  of  napkins,  as  had  all 
well-to-do  and  well-bred  Englishmen  at  that  date. 
Napkins  appear  in  all  the  early  inventories.     In  1668 


134  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  opulent  Jane  Humplireys,  of  Dorcliester,  left  "two 
wrought  Napkins  with  no  lace  around  it,"  "half  a 
duzzen  of  napkins,"  and  "napkins  wrought  about  and 
laced."  In  1680  Robert  Adams  had  six  "  diaper 
knapkins."  Captain  Tyng  had  in  1653  four  dozen  and 
a  half  of  napkins,  of  which  two  dozen  were  of  "  layd 
worke."  It  has  been  said  that  these  napkins  were 
handkerchiefs,  not  table  napkins ;  but  I  think  the  way 
they  are  classed  in  inventories  does  not  so  indicate. 
For  instance,  in  the  estate  of  Captain  Corwin,  a 
wealthy  man,  who  died  in  Salem  in  1685,  was  a  "suit 
of  Damask  1  Table  cloth,  18  napkins,  1  Towel,"  val- 
ued at  £8.  Occasionally,  however,  they  are  specially 
designated  as  "  pocket  napkins,"  as  in  the  estate  of 
Elizabeth  Cutter  in  1663,  where  four  are  valued  at  one 
shilling. 

Early  English  books  on  table  manners,  such  as  "  The 
Babees  Boke  "  and  "  The  Boke  of  Nurture,"  though 
minute  in  detail,  yet  name  no  other  table-furniture 
than  cups,  chafing-dishes,  chargers,  trenchers,  salt-cel- 
lars, knives,  and  spoons.  The  table  plenishings  of 
the  planters  were  somewhat  more  varied,  but  still 
simple;  when  our  Pilgrim  fathers  landed  at  Ply- 
mouth, the  collection  of  table-ware  owned  by  the 
entire  band  was  very  meagre.  With  the  exception 
of  a  few  plate-silver  tankards  and  drinking-cups,  it 
was  also  very  inexpensive.  The  silver  was  handsome 
and  heavy,  but  items  of  silver  in  the  earliest  inven- 
tories are  rare.  By  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century  silver  became  plentiful,  and  the  wills  even  of 
humble  folk  contain  frequent  mentions  of  it.     Min- 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  135 

isters,  doctors,  and  magistrates  had  many  handsome 
pieces.  By  the  middle  of  the  century  a  climax  was 
reached,  as  in  the  possessions  of  Peter  Faneuil,  when 
pieces  of  fui'niture  were  of  solid  silver. 

The  salt-cellar  was  the  focus  of  the  old-time  board. 
In  earlier  days,  in  England,  to  be  seated  above  or  be- 
low the  salt  plainly  spoke  the  social  standing  of  a 
guest.  The  "  standing  salt  "  was  often  the  handsom- 
est furnishing  of  the  table,  the  richest  piece  of  family 
plate.  Comfort  Starr,  of  Boston,  had,  in  1659,  a 
"greate  Siluer-gilt  double  Saltceller."  Isaac  Adding- 
ton  bequeathed  by  will  his  "  Bigges  Siluer  Sewer  & 
Salt."  A  sewer  was  a  salver.  As  we  note  by  the 
list  of  Judith  Sewall's  wedding  furniture  in  1720, 
standing  salts  were  out  of  date,  and  "  trencher  salt- 
cellars" were  in  fashion.  Four  dozen  was  a  goodly 
number,  and  evinced  an  intent  of  bounteous  hospital- 
ity. These  trencher- salts  were  of  various  shapes  and 
materials  :  "  round  and  oval  pillar-cut  Salts,  Bonnet 
Salts,  3  Leg'd  Salts,''  were  all  of  glass  ;  others  were 
of  pewter,  china,  hard  metal,  and  silver. 

The  greater  number  of  spoons  owned  by  the  colo- 
nists were  of  pewter  or  of  alchymy — oralcamyne,  oca- 
my,  ocany,  orkanie,  alcamy,  or  occonie — a  metal  com- 
posed of  pan- brass  and  arsenicum.  The  reference  in 
inventories,  enrolments,  and  wills,  to  spoons  of  these 
materials  are  so  frequent,  so  ever-present,  as  to  make 
citation  superfluous.  An  evil  reputation  of  poisonous 
unhealthfulness  hung  around  the  vari-spelled  alchymy 
(perhaps  it  is  only  a  gross  libel  of  succeeding  genera- 
tions) ;  but,  harmful  or  harmless,  alchymy,  no  matter 


136  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

how  spelt,  disappears  from  use  before  Eevolutionary 
times.  Wooden  spoons  also  are  named.  Silver  spoons 
were  not  very  plentiful.  John  Oxenbridge  bequeathed 
thirteen  spoons  in  1673,  and  "  one  sweetmeat  spoon," 
and  "  1  childs  spoon  which  was  mine  in  my  infancy." 
Other  pap-spoons  and  caudle-spoons  are  named  in 
wills  ;  marrow-spoons  also,  long  and  slender  of  bowl. 
The  value  of  a  dozen  silver  spoons  was  given  in 
1689  as  £5  13s.  6d,  In  succeeding  years  each  gen- 
teel family  owned  silver  spoons,  frequently  in  large 
number ;  while  one  Boston  physician,  Dr.  Cutter, 
had,  in  1761,  half  a  dozen  gold  teaspoons. 

Forks,  or  "tines,"  for  cooking  purposes,  and 
"prongs"  or  "grains"  or  "evils"  for  agricultural 
purposes,  were  imported  at  early  dates ;  but  I  think 
Governor  Winthrop  had  the  first  table-fork  ever 
brought  to  America.  In  1633,  when  forks  were  rare 
in  England,  he  received  a  letter  from  E.  Howes,  say- 
ing that  the  latter  had  sent  to  him  a  "  case  contain- 
ing an  Irish  skeayne  or  knife,  a  bodekyn  &  a  forke 
for  the  useful  applycation  of  which  I  leave  to  your 
discretion."  I  am  strongly  suspicious  that  Win- 
throp's  discretion  may  not  have  been  educated  up  to 
usefully  applying  the  fork  for  feeding  purposes  at  the 
table.  In  the  inventory  of  the  possessions  of  Antipas 
Boyes  (made  in  1669)  a  silver  spoon,  fork,  and  knife 
are  mentioned.  Dr.  Lyon  gives  the  names  of  seven 
New  Englanders  whose  inventories  date  from  1671  to 
1693,  and  who  owned  forks.  In  1673  Parson  Oxen- 
bridge  had  "  one  forked  spoon,"  and  his  widow  had 
two  silver  forks.    Iron  forks  were  used  in  the  kitchen, 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  137 

as  is  shown  in  the  inventory  of  Zenibbabel  Endicott 
in  1683.  And  three-tined  iron  forks  were  stuck  into 
poor  witch-ridden  souls  in  Salem  by  William  Morse — 
his  Daemon. 

In  1718  Judge  Sewall  gave  Widow  Denison  two 
cases  with  a  knife  and  fork  in  each,  "  one  Turtleshell 
tackling  the  other  long  with  Ivory  handles  squar'd 
cost  4s.  6c?."  In  1738  Peter  Fanueil  ordered  one  doz- 
en silver  forks  from  England,  "with  three  prongs, 
with  my  arms  cut  upon  them,  made  very  neat  and 
handsome."  One  Boston  citizen  had  in  1719  six 
four-pronged  forks,  an  early  example  of  that  fashion. 
In  1737  shagreen  cases  with  ivory-handled  forks  were 
advertised ;  bone,  japanned  metal,  wood,  and  horn 
handles  also  appeared — all,  of  course,  with  metal 
prongs.  Sir  Francis  Bernard  had  in  1770  three  cases 
of  china-handled  knives  and  forks,  "  with  spoons  to 
each,"  which  must  have  formed  a  pretty  table  fur- 
nishing. 

In  many  New  England  inventories  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  among  personal  belongings,  appears 
the  word  taster.  Thus  in  1659  Kichard  Webb,  of  Bos- 
ton, left  by  wHl  "1  Silver  Wine  Taster;"  and  in  1673 
John  Oxenbridge  had  "  1  Siluer  Taster  with  a  funnel." 
A  taster  was  apparently  a  small  cup.  Larger  drink- 
ing-cups  of  silver  were  called  beakers,  or  tankards, 
beer-bowls,  or  wine-bowls.  These  latter  vessels  were 
made  also  of  humbler  metal.  A  sneaker  was  a  small 
drin  king-glass,  used  by  moderate  drinkers — sneak- 
cups  they  were  called. 

The  Pilgrims  may  have  had  a  few  mugs  and  jugs 


138  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

of  coarse  earthen  ware.  A  large  invoice  of  Portu- 
guese "  road  ware  "  was  sent  to  the  Maine  settlers  in 
1634,  and  proved  thoroughly  unsuitable  and  undur- 
able  ;  but  probably  no  china — not  even  Delft  ware — 
came  over  on  the  Mayflower.  For  when  the  Pilgrims 
made  their  night  trip  through  the  Delft-producing 
cities,  no  such  wares  were  seen  on  the  tables  of  ple- 
beian persons.  Early  mentions  of  china  are  in  the 
estate  of  President  John  Davenport  in  1648 — "  Che- 
ney £5,"  and  of  Martha  Coteymore  in  1647. 

Earthen  ware,  Green  ware,  Lisbon  ware,  Spanish 
platters,  are  mentioned  in  early  inventories ;  but  I  am 
sure  neither  china  ware  nor  earthen  ware  was  plenti- 
ful in  early  days;  nor  was  china  much  known  till 
E-evolutionary  times. 

The  table  furnishings  of  the  New  England  planters 
consisted  largely  of  wooden  trenchers,  and  these 
trenchers  were  employed  for  many  years.  Some- 
times they  were  simply  square  blocks  of  wood  whit- 
tled out  by  hand.  From  a  single  trencher  two  per- 
sons— two  children,  or  a  man  and  wife — ate  their 
meals.  It  was  a  really  elegant  household  that  fur- 
nished a  trencher  apiece  for  each  diner.  Trenchers 
were  of  quite  enough  account  to  be  left  by  name  in 
early  wills,  even  in  those  of  wealthy  colonists.  In 
1689  "  2  Spoons  and  2  Trenchers  '*  were  appraised 
at  six  shillings.  Miles  Standish  left  twelve  wooden 
trenchers  when  he  died.  Many  gross  of  them  were 
purchased  for  use  at  Harvard  College.  As  late  as 
May,  1775,  I  find  "  Wooden  Trenchers  "  advertised 
among  table  furnishings,  in  the  Connecticut  Courant. 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  139 

It  was  tlie  same  in  Old  England.  J.  Ward,  writing 
in  1828  of  the  "  Potter's  Art,"  spoke  thus  of  the  hum- 
ble boards  of  his  youth  : 

"And  there  the  trencher  commonly  was  seen 
With  its  attendant  ample  platter  treen." 

Until  almost  our  own  time  trenchers  were  made  in 
Vermont  of  the  white,  clean,  hard  wood  of  the  pop- 
lar-tree, and  were  sold  and  used  in  country  homes. 
Old  wooden  trenchers  may  be  seen  in  Deerfield  Me- 
morial Hall.  Bottles,  noggins,  cups,  and  lossets  (flat 
dishes)  of  wood  were  also  used  at  colonial  boards. 

The  time  when  America  was  settled  was  the  era 
when  pewter  ware  had  begun  to  take  the  place  of 
wooden  ware,  just  as  the  time  of  the  Bevolutionary 
War  may  be  assigned  to  mark  the  victory  of  porcelain 
over  pewter. 

A  set  of  pewter  platters,  or  chargers  and  dishes, 
made  what  was  called  a  "garnish"  of  pewter,  and 
were  a  source  of  great  pride  to  every  colonial  house- 
wife, and  much  time  and  labor  were  devoted  to  pol- 
ishing them  until  they  shone  like  silver.  Dingy 
pewter  was  fairly  accounted  a  disgrace.  The  most 
accomplished  Virginian  gentleman  of  his  day  gave  as 
a  positive  rule,  in  1728,  that  "  Pewter  Bright  "  was  the 
sign  of  a  good  housekeeper. 

The  trade  of  pewterer  was  a  very  influential  and 
respectable  one  in  New  England  as  well  as  Old  Eng- 
land. One  of  Boston's  richest  merchants,  Henry 
Shrimpton,  made  large  quantities  of  pewter  ware  for 


140  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  Massaclmsetts  colonists.  So  proud  was  he  of  his 
business  that  in  his  later  years  of  opulence  he  had  a 
great  kettle  atop  of  his  house,  to  indicate  his  past 
trade  and  means  of  wealth.  Pewter  and  pewterers 
abounded  until  the  vast  increase  of  Oriental  com- 
merce brought  the  influx  of  Chinese  porcelain  to 
drive  out  the  dull  metal.  Advertisements  of  pewter 
table  utensils  did  not  disappear,  however,  in  New 
England  newspapers  until  this  century. 
A  universal  table  furnishing  was — 

"  The  porringers  that  in  a  row 
Hung  high  and  made  a  glittering  show.'* 

When  not  in  use  porringers  were  hung  by  their 
pierced  handles  on  hooks  on  the  edge  of  the  dresser- 
shelf,  and,  being  usually  of  polished  pewter  or  silver, 
indeed  made  a  glittering  show.  Pewter  porringers 
were  highly  prized.  One  family,  in  1660,  had  seven, 
and  another  housewife  boasted  of  nine.  They  were 
bequeathed  in  nearly  all  the  early  colonial  wills.  In 
1673  John  Oxenbridge  left  three  silver  porringers 
and  his  wife  one  silver  pottinger ;  but  pewter  was  the 
favorite  metal.  I  do  not  find  porringers  ever  adver- 
tised under  that  name  in  New  England  papers,  though 
many  were  made  as  late  as  this  century  by  New 
Haven,  Providence,  and  Boston  pewterers.  Many 
bearing  the  stamps  of  these  manufacturers  have  been 
preserved  until  the  present  day,  seeming  to  have  es- 
caped the  sentence  of  destruction  apparently  passed 
on  other  pewter  utensils  and  articles  of  tableware. 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  141 

Perhaps  they  have  been  saved  because  the  little,  shal- 
low, graceful  dishes,  with  flat  pierced  handle  on  one 
side,  are  really  so  pretty.  The  fish-tail  handles  are 
found  on  Dutch  pewter.  Silver  porringers  were 
made  by  all  the  silversmiths.  Many  still  exist  bear- 
ing the  stamp  of  one  honored  maker,  Paul  Eevere. 
Little  earthen  porringers  of  red  pottery  and  tortoise- 
shell  ware  are  also  found,  but  are  not  plentiful. 

A  similar  vessel,  frequently  handleless,  was  what  was 
spelt,  in  various  colonial  documents,  posned,  possnet, 
posnett,  porsnet,  pocneit,  posnert,  possenette,  post- 
nett,  and  parsnett.  It  is  derived  from  the  Welsh 
posnedj  a  porringer  or  little  dish.  In  1641  Edward 
Skinner  left  a  "  Postnett "  by  will ;  this  was  appar- 
ently of  pewter.  In  1653  Governor  Haynes,  of  Hart- 
ford, left  an  "Iron  Posnet"  by  will.  In  the  inven- 
tory of  the  estate  of  Kobert  Daniel,  of  Cambridge, 
in  1655,  we  learn  that  "  a  Little  Porsenett "  of  his 
was  worth  five  shillings.  In  1693  Governor  Caleb 
Carr,  of  Providence,  bequeathed  to  his  wife  a  "  silver 
possnet  &  the  cover  belonging  to  it."  By  these  records 
we  see  that  posnets  were  of  various  metals,  and  some- 
times had  covers.  I  have  found  no  advertisements 
of  them  in  early  American  newspapers,  even  with  all 
their  varied  array  of  utensils  and  vessels.  I  fancy 
the  name  fell  quickly  into  disuse  in  this  country.  In 
Steele's  time,  in  the  Taller,  he  speaks  of  "  a  silver  Pos- 
net to  butter  eggs. ' '  I  have  heard  the  tiny  little  shallo  w 
pewter  porringers,  about  two  or  three  inches  in  di- 
ameter, with  pierced  handles,  which  are  still  found  in 
New  England,  called  posnets.     They  were  in  olden 


142  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

times  used  to  heat  medicine  and  to  serve  pap  to  in- 
fants. I  have  also  been  told  that  these  little  porrin- 
gers were  not  posnets,  but  simply  the  samples  of 
work  made  by  apprentices  in  the  pewterer's  trade  to 
show  their  skill  and  proficiency. 

Tin  vessels  were  exceedingly  rare  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  either  for  table  fumishiugs  or  for 
cooking  utensils,  and  far  from  common  in  the  suc- 
ceeding one.  John  Wynter,  of  Eichmond's  Island, 
Maine,  had  a  "  tinninge  basson  &  a  tinninge  platter  " 
in  1638.  In  1662  Isaac  Willey,  of  New  London,  had 
"  Tynen  Pans  &  1  Tynen  Quart  Pott ; "  and  Zerubbabel 
Endicott,  of  Salem,  had  a  "  great  tyn  candlestick." 
By  1729,  when  Governor  Burnet's  effects  were  sold, 
we  read  of  kitchen  utensils  of  tin. 

I  do  not  think  iron  was  in  high  favor  among  the 
colonists  as  a  material  for  household  utensils.  It  was 
not  an  iron  age.  They  had  iron  pans,  candlesticks, 
dishes,  fire-dogs,  and  pots :  the  latter  vessels  were 
traded  for  vast  and  valuable  tracts  of  land  with  the 
simple  red  men;  but  iron  was  not  vastly  in  use. 
At  an  early  date  iron-foundries  were  established 
throughout  New  England,  with,  however,  varying 
success. 

Latten  ware,  which  was  largely  composed  of  brass, 
appeared  in  various  useful  forms  for  table  and  culi- 
nary appointments.  Hard-metal  was  a  superior  sort 
of  pewter.  Prince's  metal  (so  called  from  Prince 
Rupert),  a  fine  brass  alloyed  with  copper  and  arseni- 
cum,  is  occasionally  named. 

Leather,  strangely  enough,  was  also  used  on  the 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  143 

table  in  the  form  of  bottles  and  drinking  cups  and 
jacks,  which  were  pitchers  or  jugs  of  waxed  leather, 
much  used  in  ale-houses  in  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth century,  and  whose  employment  gave  rise  to 
the  belief  of  the  French  that  Englishmen  drank  their 
ale  out  of  their  boots.  Endicott  received  of  Winthrop 
one  leathern  jack  worth  one  shilling  and  sixpence. 
I  find  leathern  jacks,  bottles,  and  cups  named  among 
the  property  of  Connecticut  colonists. 

Nearly  all  the  glass  ware  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  of  inferior  quality,  full  of  bubbles  and  defects. 
It  was  frequently  fluted.  Many  pieces  have  been 
preserved  that  have  been  painted  in  vitrifiable  colors, 
the  designs  are  crude,  the  colors  red,  yellow,  blue,  and 
occasionally  black  or  green.  The  transparent  glass 
thus  painted  is  said  to  be  of  Dutch  manufacture. 
The  opalized  glass  similarly  decorated  is  Spanish. 
Drinking-glasses  or  flip-mugs  seem  to  have  been 
most  common,  or,  at  any  rate,  most  largely  pre- 
served. The  tradition  attached  to  all  the  pieces 
of  Spanish  glass  which  I  have  found  in  New  Eng- 
land homes  is  that  they  came  from  the  Barbadoes. 
Bristol  glass  also  was  painted  in  colors,  and  came 
to  this  country,  being  advertised  in  the  Boston  News- 
Letter. 

Glass  bottles  were  frequently  left  by  will  in  early 
days,  being  rare  and  valuable  ;  but  by  newspaper  days 
glass  was  imported  in  various  shapes,  and  soon  was 
plentiful  enough.  In  1773  we  find  this  advertise- 
ment : 


144  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

"Very  rich  Cut  Glass  Candlesticks,  cut  Glass  sugar 
Boxes  &  Cream  Potts,  Wine,  Wine  &  Water,  and  Beer 
Glasses  with  cut  shanks.  Jelly  &  Syllabub  Glasses,  Glass 
Salvers,  also  Cyder  Glasses,  Free  Mason  Glasses,  Orange 
&  Top  Glasses,  Glass  Cans,  Glass  Cream  Buckets  and 
Crewits,  Boyal  Arch  Mason  Glasses,  Glass  Pyramids  with 
Jelly  Glasses,  Globe  &  Barrel  Lamps,  Double  Flynt  Wyn 
Glasses,"  &c. 

The  most  CTirious  glass  relics  that  are  preserved 
are  the  flip-glasses  or  bumper-glasses ;  they  are  tum- 
bler-shaped, and  are  frequently  engraved  or  fluted. 
Some  hold  over  a  gallon. 

The  names  of  table  furnishings  varied  somewhat  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  There  were  milk-pots,  milk- 
ewers,  milk-jugs,  ere  there  were  milk-pitchers ;  sugar- 
boxes,  sugar-pots,  sugar-basins,  ere  there  w^ere  sugar- 
bowls  ;  spoon-boats  and  spoon-basins  ere  there  were 
spoon-holders.  Terrineswere  imported  about  1750. 
There  were  pickle-dishes  and  pickle-boats,  twifflers, 
mint-stands  and  vegetable-basins. 

One  other  appurtenance  of  a  dining-room  is  found 
in  all  early  inventories — a  voider.  Pewter  voiders 
abounded  and  were  advertised  in  newspapers,  as  were 
wicker  and  china  voiders  in  1740.  The  functions  of 
a  voider  were  somewhat  those  of  a  crumb-tray.  They 
are  thus  given  in  Hugh  Ehodes's  *'  Boke  of  Nurture" 
in  1577  : 

*'  Wyth  bones  &  voyd  morsels  fyll  not 
thy  trenclionr,  my  friend,  full 
Avoyd  them  into  a  Voyder, 
no  man  will  it  anuU. 


TABLE  PLENISHINGS  145 

When  meate  is  taken  quyte  awaye 

and  Voyders  in  presence 
Put  you  your  trenchoui*  in  the  same 

and  all  your  resydence. 
Take  you  with  your  napkin  &  knyf e 

the  croms  that  are  fore  thee 
In  the  Voyder  your  Napkin  leave 

for  it  is  curtesye." 


10 


VI 

SUPPLIES   OF   THE  LAKDER 

There  is  a  tradition  of  short  commons,  usually  ex- 
tending even  to  stories  of  starvation,  in  the  accounts 
of  all  early  settlements  in  new  lands,  and  the  records 
of  the  Pilgrims  show  no  exception  to  the  rule.  These 
early  planters  went  through  a  fiery  furnace  of  afflic- 
tion. The  beef  and  pork  brought  with  them  became 
tainted,  "  their  butter  and  cheese  corrupted,  their  fish 
rotten."  A  scarcity  of  food  lasted  for  three  years,  and 
there  was  little  variety  of  fare,  yet  they  were  cheerful. 
Brewster,  when  he  had  naught  to  eat  but  clams,  gave 
thanks  that  he  was  "  permitted  to  suck  of  the  abun- 
dance of  the  seas  and  the  treasures  hid  in  the  sands.'* 
Cotton  Mather  says  that  Governor  Winthrop,  of  the 
Bay  settlement,  was  giving  to  a  poor  neighbor  the  last 
meal  from  his  chest,  when  it  was  announced  that  the 
food-bearing  Lion  had  arrived.  The  General  Court 
thereat  changed  an  appointed  Fast  Day  to  a  Thanks- 
giving Day.  By  tradition — still  commemorated  at 
Forefathers'  Dinner — the  ration  of  Indian  corn  sup- 
plied to  each  person  was  at  one  time  but  &ye  ker- 
;iels. 

Still  there  was  always  plenty  of  fish — the  favorite 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE  LARDER  147 

food  of  the  English — and  Squanto  taught  the  colonists 
various  Indian  methods  of  catching  the  "  treasures  of 
the  sea."  With  oysters  and  lobsters  they  were  far 
from  starvation.  Higginson  said  of  the  latter  shell- 
fish, in  1630,  "  the  least  boy  in  the  Plantation  may 
both  catch  and  eat  what  he  will  of  them."  He  says 
that  lobsters  were  caught  weighing  twenty-five  pounds 
each,  and  that  the  abundance  of  other  fish  was  beyond 
believing.  Josselyn,  in  his  "  New  England  Earities," 
enumerated  two  hundred  and  three  varieties  of  fish ; 
yet  Tuckerman  calls  his  list  "a poor  makeshift."  The 
planters  had  plenty  of  implements  with  which  to  catch 
fish — "vtensils  of  the  sea" — "quoils  of  rope  and  cable, 
rondes  of  twine,  herring  nets,  seans,  cod-lines  and 
cod  hookes,  mackrill-lines,  drails,  spiller  hooks,  mus- 
sel-hooks, mackrill  hooks,  barbels,  splitting  knives, 
sharks  hookes,  basse-nettes,  pues  and  gaffs,  squid 
lines,  yeele  pots,"  &g.  Josselyn  also  tells  some  very 
pretty  ways  of  cooking  fish,  especially  eels  with  herbs, 
showing  that,  like  Poins,  the  colonists  loved  conger 
and  fennel.  Eels  were  roasted,  fried,  and  boiled. 
Boiled  "  eals  "  were  thus  prepared  : 

"Boil  them  in  half  water  haK  wine  with  the  bottom 
of  a  manchet,  a  fagot  of  Parsly  and  a  little  Winter 
Savory,  when  they  are  boiled  they  take  them  out  and 
break  the  bread  in  the  broth  and  put  in  two  or  three 
spoonfuls  of  yest  and  a  piece  of  sweet  butter,  pour  to 
the  eals  laid  upon  sippets."  Another  way  beloved 
by  him  was  to  stuff  the  eels  with  nutmeg  and  cloves, 
stick  them  with  cloves,  cook  in  wine,  place  on  a  chaf- 
ing-dish, and  garnish  with  lemons.     This  rich  dish  is 


148  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

somewhat  overclouded  by  his  suggestion  that  the  eels 
be  arranged  in  a  wreath. 

The  frequent  references  to  eels  in  early  accounts 
prove  that  they  were  regarded,  as  Izaak  Walton  said, 
"  a  very  dainty  fish,  the  queen  of  palate-pleasure." 

Next  to  fish,  the  early  colonists  found  in  Indian 
com,  or  "  Guinny  wheat  " — "  Turkic  wheat "  one  trav- 
eller called  it — their  most  unfailing  food-supply. 
Our  first  native  poet  wrote,  in  1675,  of  what  he  called 
early  days : 

**Tlie  dainty  Indian  maize, 
Was  eat  with  clamp-shells  out  of  wooden  trays.** 

Its  abundance  and  adaptability  did  much  to  change 
the  nature  of  their  diet  as  well  as  to  save  them  from 
starvation.  The  colonists  learned  from  the  Indians 
how  to  plant,  nourish,  harvest,  grind,  and  cook  it  in 
many  Indian  ways,  and  in  each  way  it  formed  a  pal- 
atable food.  The  Indian  pudding  which  they  ate  so 
constantly  was  made  in  Indian  fashion  and  boiled  in 
a  bag.  To  the  mush  of  Indian  meal  they  gave  the 
English  name  of  hasty-pudding.  Many  of  the  foods 
made  from  maize  retained  the  names  given  in  the 
aboriginal  tongues,  such  as  hominy,  suppawn,  pone, 
samp,  succotash ;  and  doubtless  the  manner  of  cook- 
ing is  wholly  Indian.  Hoe-cakes  and  ash-cakes  were 
made  by  the  squaws  long  before  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrims.  Roasting  ears  of  green  corn  were  made 
the  foundation  of  a  solemn  Indian  feast  and  also  of 
a  planters'  frolic.  It  is  curious  to  read  Winthrop's 
careful  explanation,  that  when  corn  is  parched   it 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE  LARDER  149 

turns  entirely  inside  out,  and  is  "  white  and  floury 
within  ; "  and  to  think  that  there  ever  w^as  a  time  when 
pop-corn  was  a  novelty  to  white  children  in  New 
England. 

Wood  said  that  suhquttahhasJi  was  "seethed  like 
beanes."  Roger  Williams  said  that "  nassaump,  which 
the  English  call  Samp,  is  Indian  come  beaten  &  boil'd 
and  eaten  hot  or  cold  with  milke  or  butter  and  is  a 
diet  exceeding  wholesome  for  English  bodies."  No- 
cake,  or  nokick,  Wood,  in  his  "New  England  Pros- 
pects," thus  defines :  "  Indian  com  parched  in  the  hot 
ashes,  the  ashes  being  sifted  from  it,  it  is  afterward 
beaten  to  powder  and  put  into  a  long  leatherne  bag 
trussed  at  their  back  like  a  knapsacke,  out  of  which 
they  take  thrice  three  spoonsfulls  a  day."  It  was  held 
to  be  wonderfully  sustaining  food  in  most  condensed 
form.  It  was  carried  in  a  pouch,  on  long  journeys, 
and  mixed  before  eating  with  snow  in  winter  and 
water  in  summer.  Jonne-cake,  or  journey-cake,  was 
also  made  from  maize.  For  years  the  colonists 
pounded  the  corn  in  stone  mortars,  as  did  the  In- 
dians ;  then  in  wooden  mortars  with  pestles.  Then 
rude  hand-mills  were  made — "quernes  " — with  upright 
shafts  fixed  immovably  at  the  upper  end,  and  fastened 
at  the  lower  end  near  the  outside  edge  of  a  flat, 
circular  stone,  which  was  made  to  revolve  in  a  mor- 
tar. By  turning  the  shaft  wdth  one  hand,  the  corn 
could  be  supplied  to  the  grinding-stone  with  the 
other.  These  hand-mills  are  sometimes  still  found 
in  use  as  "  samp-mills."  Wind-mills  and  water-mills 
followed  naturally  in  the  train  of  the  hand-mills. 


150  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Wheat  but  little  availed  for  food  in  early  days, 
being  frequently  blighted.  Oats  were  raised  in  con- 
siderable quantity,  a  pill-corn  or  peel-corn  or  sil-pee 
variety.  Josselyn,  writing  in  1671,  gives  a  New  Eng- 
land dish,  which  he  says  is  as  good  as  whitpot,  made 
of  oatmeal,  sugar,  spice,  and  a  "  pottle  of  milk ; "  a 
pottle  was  two  quarts.  At  a  somewhat  later  date  the 
New  Hampshire  settlers  had  a  popular  oatmeal  por- 
ridge, in  which  the  oatmeal  was  sifted,  left  in  water, 
and  allowed  to  sour,  then  boiled  to  a  jelly,  and  was 
called  "sowens."  It  is  still  eaten  in  Northumber- 
land. 

By  the  strict  laws  made  to  govern  bakers  and  the 
number  of  bake-shops  that  were  licensed,  and  the 
sharp  punishments  for  baking  short  weight,  etc.,  it 
seems  plain  that  New  England  housemves  did  little 
home  baking  in  early  days.  The  bread  was  doubt- 
less of  many  kinds,  as  in  England — simnels,  crack- 
nels, jannacks,  cheat  loaves,  cocket-bread,  wastel- 
bread,  manchet,  and  buns.  Pure  wheaten  loaves 
were  not  largely  used  as  food  —  bread  from  com 
meal  dried  quickly ;  hence  rye  meal  was  mixed  with 
the  corn,  and  "  rye  'n'  Injun  "  bread  was  everywhere 
eaten. 

To  the  other  bountiful  companion  food  of  com, 
pumpkins,  the  colonists  never  turned  very  read- 
ily. Pompions  they  called  them  in  "  the  times 
wherein  old  Pompion  was  a  saint."  Johnson,  in 
his  "  Wonder- Working  Providence,"  reproved  them 
for  makrag  a  jest  of  pumpkins,  since  they  were 
so  good  and  unfailing  a  food — *'a  fruit  which  the 


SUPPLIES  OF  THE  LARDER        151 

Lord  fed  his  people  with  till  corn  and  cattle  in- 
creased." 

"  We  have  pumpkins  at  morning  and  pumpkins  at  noon, 
If  it  were  not  for  pumpkins  we  should  be  undone." 

Pompions,  and  what  Higginson  called  squanter- 
squashes,  Josselyn  squontersquoshes,  Roger  Will- 
iams askutasquashes,  Wood  isquoukersquashes — and 
we  clip  to  squashes — grew  in  vast  plenty.  The 
Indians  dried  the  pompions  on  strings  for  winter 
use,  as  is  still  done  in  New  England  farm  commnni- 
ties.  Madam  Knight  had  them  frequently  offered  to 
her  on  her  journey — "pumpkin  sause  "and  "  pumpkin 
bred."  "  We  would  have  eat  a  morsel  ourselves,  but 
the  Pumpkin  &  Indian-mixt  bread  had  such  an 
Aspect."  Pumpkin  bread  is  made  in  Connecticut  to 
this  day.  For  pumpkin  "  sause  "  we  have  a  two- 
centuries-old  receipt,  which  was  given  by  Josselyn,  in 
1671,  in  his  "  New  England  Rarities,"  and  called  by 
him  even  at  that  day  "an  Ancient  New  England 
Standing-dish." 

"  The  Housewives  manner  is  to  slice  them  when  ripe 
and  cut  them  into  Dice,  and  so  fill  a  pot  with  them  of 
two  or  three  Gallons  and  stew  them  upon  a  gentle  fire 
the  whole  day.  And  as  they  sink  they  fill  again  with 
fresh  Pompions  not  putting  any  liquor  to  them  and  when 
it  is  stir'd  enough  it  will  look  like  bak'd  Apples,  this 
Dish  putting  Butter  to  it  and  a  little  Vinegar  with  some 
Spice  as  Ginger  which  makes  it  tart  like  an  Apple,  and 
so  serve  it  up  to  be  eaten  with  fish  or  flesh." 


152  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

This  must  be  a  very  good  "sause,"  and  a  very 
good  receipt  when  once  it  is  clear  to  your  mind 
which  of  them — the  housewives  or  the  pompions — sink 
and  are  to  fill  and  be  filled  in  a  pot,  and  stirred  and 
stewed  and  put  liquor  to. 

In  an  old  book  which  I  own,  which  was  used  by 
many  generations  of  New  England  cooks,  I  find  this 
"  singular  good  "  rule  to  make  a  "  Pumpion  Pye  :  " 

**  Take  about  halfe  a  pound  of  Pumpion  and  slice  it,  a 
handful  of  Tyme,  a  little  Rosemary,  Parsley  and  Sweet 
Mai-joram  slipped  off  the  stalkes,  and  chop  them  smal, 
then  take  Cinamon,  Nutmeg,  Pepper,  and  six  Cloves  and 
beat  them,  take  ten  Eggs  and  beat  them,  then  mix  them, 
and  beat  them  altogether,  and  put  in  as  much  Sugar  as  you 
think  fit,  then  fry  them  like  a  froiz,  after  it  is  f ryed,  let  it 
stand  til  it  be  cold,  then  fill  your  Pye,  take  sliced  Apples 
thinne  rounde-wayes,  and  lay  a  row  of  the  Froiz  and  layer 
of  Apples  with  Currans  betwixt  the  layer  while  your  Pye 
is  fitted,  and  put  in  a  good  deal  of  sweet  butter  before  you 
close  it,  when  the  pye  is  baked  take  six  yelks  of  Eggs, 
some  White-wine  or  Vergis,  and  make  a  Caudle  of  this, 
but  not  too  thicke,  cut  up  the  Lid  and  put  it  in,  stir  them 
wel  together  whilst  the  Eggs  and  Pompions  be  not  per- 
ceived and  so  serve  it  up." 

I  am  sure  there  would  be  no  trouble  about  the  pom- 
pions being  perceived,  and  I  can  fancy  the  modest 
half-pound  of  country  vegetable  blushing  a  deeper 
orange  to  find  its  name  given  to  this  ambitious  and 
compound-sentenced  concoction  which  helped  to  form 
part  of  the  "  simple  diet  of  the  good  old  times."    I 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE  LARDER  153 

have  found  no  modem  cook  bold  enough  to  "  prove  " 
(as  the  book  says)  this  pumpion  pie ;  but  hope,  if 
any  one  understands  it,  she  will  attempt  it. 

Potatoes  were  on  the  list  of  seeds,  fruits,  and  vege- 
tables that  were  furnished  to  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
colonists  in  1628,  and  fifteen  tons  (which  were 
probably  sweet  potatoes)  were  imported  from  Ber- 
muda in  1636  and  sold  in  Boston  at  twopence  a 
pound.  Winthrop  wrote  of  "potatose"  in  1683. 
Their  cultivation  was  rare.  There  is  a  tradition  that 
the  Irish  settlers  at  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  began  the 
first  systematic  planting  of  potatoes.  At  the  Har- 
vard Commencement  dinner,  in  1708,  potatoes  were 
on  the  list  of  supplies.  A  crop  of  eight  bushels, 
which  one  Hadley  farmer  had  in  1763,  was  large — 
too  large,  since  "if  a  man  ate  them  every  day  he 
could  not  live  beyond  seven  years."  Indeed,  the  "  gal- 
lant root  of  potatoes  "  was  regarded  as  a  sort  of  for- 
bidden fruit — a  root  more  than  suspected  of  being  an 
over-active  aphrodisiac,  and  withal  so  wholly  aban- 
doned as  not  to  have  been  mentioned  in  the  Bible  ; 
and  when  Parson  Jonathan  Hubbard,  of  Sheffield, 
raised  twenty  bushels  in  one  year,  it  is  said  he  came 
very  near  being  dealt  with  by  his  church  for  his 
wicked  hardihood.  In  more  than  one  town  the  set- 
tlers fancied  the  balls  were  the  edible  portion,  and 
"  did  not  much  desire  them."  Nor  were  fashiona- 
ble methods  of  cooking  them  much  more  to  be  de- 
sired. In  "  The  Accomplisht  Cook,"  used  about  the 
year  1700,  potatoes  were  ordered  to  be  boiled  and 
blanched ;     seasoned    with  nutmeg,   cinnamon,    and 


154  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

pepper ;  mixed  with  eringo  roots,  dates,  lemon,  and 
whole  mace ;  covered  with  butter,  sugar,  and  grape 
verjuice,  made  with  pastry ;  then  iced  with  rosewater 
and  sugar,  and  yclept  a  "  Secret  Pye."  Alas,  poor, 
ill-used,  be-sugared,  secreted  potato,  fit  but  for  kiss- 
ing-comfits !  we  can  well  understand  your  unpopu- 
larity. 

Other  vegetables  were  produced  in  New  England 
in  abundance.  Higginson  speaks  of  green  peas,  tur- 
nips, parsnips,  carrots,  and  cucumbers,  and  a  dozen 
fruits  and  berries.  Cranberries  were  plentiful  and 
soon  were  exported  to  England.  Josselyn  gives  a 
very  full  list  of  fruits  and  vegetables  and  pot-herbs, 
including  beans,  which  were  baked  by  the  Indians 
in  earthen  pots  as  they  are  now  in  Boston  bake- 
shops. 

There  was  a  goodly  supply  of  game.  Bradford 
wrote  of  the  year  1621,  "  beside  waterfoule  ther  was 
great  store  of  wild  Turkies."  Wood  said  these  turkeys 
sometimes  weighed  forty  pounds  apiece,  and  sold  for 
four  shillings  each.  Josselyn  assigned  to  them  the 
enormous  weight  of  sixty  pounds.  All  agreed  that 
they  were  far  superior  to  the  English  domestic  turkeys. 
Morton  said  they  came  in  flocks  of  a  hundred ;  yet  the 
Winthrops  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  two  to  breed 
from  in  1683,  and  by  1690  it  was  rare  to  see  a  wild 
turkey  in  New  England.  The  beautiful  great  bronze 
birds  had  flown  away  from  the  white  man's  civiliza- 
tion and  guns. 

Flocks  of  thousands  of  geese  took  their  noisy,  grace- 
ful V-shaped  flight  over  New  England,  and  were  shot 


SUPPLIES  OF  THE  LARDER  155 

in  large  numbers.  Dudley  wrote  home  that  doves 
were  so  plentiful  that  they  obscured  the  light.  Jos- 
selyn  said  he  had  bought  in  Boston  a  dozen  pigeons 
all  dressed  for  threepence.  It  is  said  they  were 
sometimes  sold  as  low  as  a  penny  a  dozen.  Roger 
Clap  said  it  would  have  been  counted  a  strange  thing 
in  early  days  to  see  a  piece  of  roast  veal,  beef,  or 
mutton,  though  it  was  not  long  ere  there  was  roast 
goat.  By  1684  a  French  refugee  said  beef,  mutton, 
and  pork  were  but  twopence  a  pound  in  Boston. 
Clap  says  he  ate  his  samp,  or  hominy,  without  butter 
or  milk,  but  Higginson  wrote  in  1630,  and  Morton  in 
1624,  that  they  had  a  quart  of  milk  for  a  penny. 
John  Cotton  said  ministers  and  milk  were  the  only 
things  cheap  in  New  England. 

By  Johnson's  time  New  Englanders  had  "  Apple, 
Pear  and  Quince  Tarts  instead  of  their  former  Pump- 
kin Pies."  They  had  besides  apple-tarts,  apple  mose, 
apple  slump,  mess  apple-pies,  buttered  apple-pies, 
apple  crowdy  and  puff  apple-pies — all  differing. 

Josselyn  said  the  "  Quinces,  Cherries,  &  Damsins 
set  the  Dames  a -work.  Marmalet  &  Preserved 
Damsins  is  to  be  met  with  in  every  house."  Skill 
in  preserving  was  ever  an  English-woman's  pride, 
and  New-English  women  did  not  forget  the  les- 
sons learned  in  their  "  faire  English  homes."  They 
made  preserves  and  conserves,  marmalets  and  quid- 
donies,  hypocras  and  household  wines,  usquebarbs 
and  cordials.  They  candied  fruits  and  made  syrups. 
They  preserved  everything  that  would  bear  preserv- 
ing.    I  have  seen  old-time  receipts  for  preserving 


166  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

quinces,  "respasse,"  pippins,  "apricocks,"  plums, 
"  damsins,"  peaches,  oranges,  lemons,  artichokes, 
green  walnuts,  elecampane  roots,  eringo  roots, 
grapes,  barberries,  cherries ;  receipts  for  syrup  of 
clove  gillyflower,  wormwood,  mint,  aniseed,  clove, 
elder,  lemons,  marigolds,  citron,  hyssop,  liquorice ; 
receipts  for  conserves  of  roses,  violets,  borage  flowers, 
rosemary,  betony,  sage,  mint,  lavender,  marjoram, 
and  "  piony ; "  rules  for  candying  fruit,  berries,  and 
flowers,  for  poppy  water,  cordial,  cherry  water,  lemon 
water,  thyme  water,  Angelica  water.  Aqua  MirabiKs, 
Aqua  Coelestis,  clary  water,  mint  water. 

No  wonder  a  profession  of  preserving  sprung  up. 
By  1731  we  find  advertised  in  June  in  the  Boston 
Neios  Letter,  "  At  Widow  Bonyots  All  Sorts  of  Fruits 
in  Preserves  Jellys  and  Surrups.  Egg  Cakes,  All 
sorts  of  Macaroons,  Mai'chepane  Crisp  Almonds.  All 
sorts  Conserves,  Also  Meat  Jellys  for  the  sick." 

We  can  see  plainly  by  these  statements  that  New 
England  was  no  Nidderland.  Even  in  Josselyn's 
day  he  wrote,  "  they  have  not  forgotten  the  English 
fashion  of  stirring  up  their  appetites  with  variety  of 
cooking  their  food."  The  pages  of  Judge  Sewall's  di- 
ary give  many  hints  of  his  daily  fare.  He  speaks  of 
"  boil'd  Pork,  boil'd  Pigeons,  boil'd  Bacon  and  boil'd 
Venison  ;  rost  Beef,  rost  Lamb,  rost  Fowls,  rost 
Turkey,  pork  and  beans;"  "  Frigusee  of  Fowls," 
"  Joll  of  Salmon,"  "  Oysters,  Fish  and  Oyl,  conners, 
Legg  of  Pork,  hogs  Cheek  and  souett ;  pasty,  bread 
and  butter;  Minc'd  Pye,  Aplepy,  tarts,  ginger- 
bread, sugar'd    almonds,  glaz'd    almonds ; "   honey. 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE  LARDER  157 

curds  and  cream,  sage  cheese,  green  pease,  barley, 
"  Yokhegg  in  milk,  chockolett,  figgs,"  oranges,  shat- 
tucks,  apples,  quinces,  strawberries,  cherries,  and 
raspberries ;  a  very  fair  list  of  viands. 

"  Yokhegg  "  is  probably  "  yeokheag,"  a  name  for 
Indian  com,  parched  and  pounded  into  meal,  a  name 
by  which  it  was  known  for  many  years  in  Eastern 
Connecticut. 

Sewall  was  a  very  valiant  trencher-man.  He  re- 
cords with  much  zest  going  down  the  Bay  to  an  island, 
or  riding  to  Koxbury  for  an  outing  and  dinner,  and 
coming  home  in  "  brave  moonshine."  And,  like  his 
neighbor,  Cotton  Mather,  he  drew  many  a  spiritual 
lesson  from  the  food  set  before  him ;  especially,  how- 
ever, at  a  scambling  meal,  or  at  any  repast  which  he 
ate  alone,  and  hence  had  naught  and  no  one  to  di- 
vert therefrom  his  ever-religious  thoughts. 

From  a  curious  account  of  Boston,  written  by  a 
traveller  named  Bennet,  in  the  year  1740,  we  take  the 
following  statements  of  the  cost  of  food  there  : 

*'  Their  poultry  of  all  sorts  are  as  fine  as  can  be  desired, 
and  they  have  plenty  of  fine  fish  of  various  kinds,  all  of 
which  are  veiy  cheap.  Take  the  butchers'  meat  all  to- 
gether, in  every  season  of  the  year,  I  believe  it  is  about 
twopence  per  pound  sterlinjv  ;  the  best  beef  and  mutton, 
lamb  and  veal  are  often  sold  for  sixpence  per  pound  of 
New  England  money,  which  is  some  small  matter  more 
than  one  penny  sterhng, 

"  Poultry  in  their  season  are  exceeding  cheap.  As  good 
ft  turkey  may  be  bought  for  about  two  shillings  sterling 
as  we  can  buy  in  London  for  six  or  seven,  and  as  fine  a 


158  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

goose  for  tenpence  as  would  cost  three  shillings  and  six- 
pence or  four  shillings  in  London.  The  cheapest  of  all  the 
several  kinds  of  poultry  are  a  sort  of  wild  pigeon,  which 
are  in  season  the  latter  end  of  June,  and  so  continue  until 
September.  They  are  large,  and  finer  than  those  we  have 
in  London,  and  are  sold  here  for  eighteenpence  a  dozen, 
and  sometimes  for  half  of  that. 

"  Fish,  too,  is  exceeding  cheap.  They  sell  a  fine  fresh 
cod  that  will  weigh  a  dozen  pounds  or  more,  just  taken 
out  of  the  sea,  for  about  twopence  sterling.  They  have 
smelts,  too,  which  they  sell  as  cheap  as  sprats  are  in  Lon- 
don. Salmon,  too,  they  have  in  great  plenty,  and  those 
they  sell  for  about  a  shilling  apiece,  which  will  weigh 
fourteen  or  fifteen  pounds. 

"  They  have  venison  very  plenty.  They  will  sell  as  fine 
a  haunch  for  half  a  crown  as  would  cost  full  thirty  shil- 
lings in  England.  Bread  is  much  cheaper  than  we  have 
in  England,  but  is  not  near  so  good.  Butter  is  very  fine, 
and  cheaper  than  ever  I  bought  any  in  London  ;  the  best 
is  sold  all  summer  for  threepence  a  pound.  But  as  for 
cheese,  it  is  neither  cheap  nor  good." 

I  am  somewhat  surprised  at  Bennet's  dictum  with 
regard  to  cheese,  and  can  only  feel  that  he  had  special 
ill  fortune  in  choosing  his  cheesemonger.  For  cer- 
tainly the  Rhode  Island  cheese,  made  from  the  rich 
milk  of  the  great  herds  of  choice  cows  that  dotted  the 
fertile  and  sunny  fields  of  old  Narragansett,  was  sent 
to  England  and  the  Barbadoes  in  great  quantity, 
and  commanded  special  prices  there.  Brissot  said  it 
was  equal  to  the  "  best  Cheshire  of  England  or  Roc- 
fort  of  France."  This  cheese  was  made  from  a  receipt 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE  LARDER  159 

for  Cheshire  cheese  which  was  brought  to  Narragansett 
by  Eichard  Smith's  wife  in  the  seventeenth  century  ; 
and  her  home  is  still  standing,  though  built  around, 
at  Cocumcussett,  where  her  husband  and  Eoger 
Williams  founded  a  colony. 

AVe  have  a  very  distinct  rendering  of  the  items  of 
family  expense,  chiefly  of  food,  at  about  that  time, 
given  us  by  a  contemporary  authority,  and  be- 
queathed to  us  in  a  letter  to  the  Boston  Neios  Letter 
of  November  28,  1728.  The  writer  refers  to  other 
*'  scheams  of  expence  "  for  a  household  which  have 
been  made  public,  one  apparently  being  at  the  rate 
of  £250  a  year  for  the  entire  outlay.  This  sum  he 
thinks  inadequate  and  "  disproves  in  a  moment." 
He  gives  his  own  careful  estimate  of  the  cost  of 
keeping  a  family  of  eight  persons.  It  is  computed 
for  "  Families  of  Midling  Figure  who  bear  the  Char- 
acter of  being  Genteel,"  and  reads  thus : 

**  For  Diet.     For  one  Person  a  Day. 

1  Breakfast  Id.     a  Pint  of  Milk  2d. .03 

2  Dinner.      Pudding  Bread  Meat  Roots  Pickles 

Vinegar  Salt  &  Cheese .09 

N.  B.  In  this  article  of  the  Dinner  I  would  include 
all  the  Raisins  Currants  Suet  Flour  Eggs  Cran- 
berries Apples  &  where  there  are  children  all 
their  Intermeal  Eatings  throughout  the  whole  Year. 
And  I  think  a  Gentleman  cannot  well  Dine  his 
family  at  a  lower  Rate  than  this. 

3  Supper  As  the  Breakfast .03 

4  Small  Beer  for  the  Whole  Day  Winter  &  Summer.  1^ 
N.  B.      In  this  article  of  the  Beer   I   would  likewise 

include  all  the  Molasses  used  in  the  Family  not 
only  in  Brewing  but;  on  other  Occasions. 


160  OLD  KEW  ENGLAND 

For  one  Person  a  Day  in  all Is.     4^. 

For  Whole  Family 11a. 

For  the  Whole  Family  365  days £200    15«. 

For  Butter,  2  Firkins  at  68  lb.  apiece,  IQd,  a  lb. .    £    9      1«. 
For  Sugar.     Cannot  be  less  than  10s.  a  Month  or 

4  weeks  especially  when  there  are  children.    £    6     10s. 
For  Candles  but  3  a  Night  Summer  &  Winter 

for  Ordinary  &  Extraordinary  occasions  at 

15^.  for  9  in  the  lb £    7    12s.     .01 

For  Sand  20s.     Soap  40s.     Washing  Once  in  4 

weeks  at  3s.  a  time  with  3  Meals  a  Day  at  2s. 

more    £    6    5s. 

For  One  Maids  Wages £  10 

For  Shoes  after  the  Rate  of  each  3  Pair  in  a  year 

at  9s.  a  Pair  for  7  Persons,  the  Maid  finding 

lier  own £    9    09s. 

In  all  £249     12s.     M, 


No  House  Rents  Mentioned  Nor  Buying  Carting  Pyling  or  Sawing 

Firewood 

No  Coffee  Tea  nor  Chocolate 

No  Wine  nor  Cyder  nor  any  other  Spirituous  Liquor 

No  Pipes  Tobacco  Spice  nor  Sweetmeats 

No  Hospitality  or  Occasional  Entertaining  either  Gentlemen  Strang- 
ers Relatives  or  Friends 

No  Acts  of  Charity  nor  Contributions  for  Pious  Uses 

No  Pocket  Expenses  either  for  Horse  Hire  Travelling  or  Convenient 
Recreations 

No  Postage  for  Letters  or  Numberless  other  Occasions 

No  Charges  of  Nursing 

No  Schooling  for  Children 

No  Buying  of  Books  of  any  Sort  or  Pens  Ink  &  Paper 

No  Lyings  In 

No  Sickness,  Nothing  to  Apothecary  or  Doctor 

No  Buying  Mending  or  Repairing  Household  Stuff  or  Utensils 

Nothing  to  the  Simstress  nor  to  the  Taylor  nor  to  the  Barber,  nor 
to  the  Hatter  nor  to  the  Shopkeeper  &  Therefore  no  Cloaths." 


SUPPLIES   OF  THE   LARDER  161 

Certainly  we  gain  from  this  "  scheam  "  a  very  clear 
notion  of  the  style  of  living  of  this  genteel  Boston 
family. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  possibility  of  exactly  pictur- 
ing the  serving  of  a  meal  in  early  days ;  but  one 
peculiarity  is  known  of  the  dinner — the  pudding 
came  first.  Hence  the  old  saying,  "  I  came  in  season 
— in  pudding-time."  In  an  account  of  a  Sunday 
dinner  given  at  the  house  of  John  Adams,  as  late  as 
1817,  the  first  course  was  a  pudding  of  Indian  corn, 
molasses,  and  butter ;  the  second,  veal,  bacon,  neck  of 
mutton,  and  vegetables. 

For  many  years  the  colonists  "dined  exact  at 
noon,"  and  on  farms  even  half  an  hour  earlier.  On 
Saturday  all  ate  fish  for  dinner.  Judge  Sewall  fre- 
quently speaks  of  his  Saturday  dinner  of  fish.  Fish 
days  had  been  prescribed  by  the  King  in  England,  in 
order  that  the  fisheries  might  not  fail  of  support,  as 
was  feared  on  account  of  the  increased  consumption 
of  meat  induced  by  the  reformation  in  religion.  New 
En  glanders  loyally  followed  the  mandate,  but  ate 
cod-fish  on  Saturdays,  since  the  Papists  ate  fish  on 
Fridays. 

One  very  pleasant  and  friendly  custom  that  existed 
among  these  kindly  New  England  neighbors  must  be 
spoken  of  in  passing.  It  is  thus  indicated  by  Judge 
Sewall  when  he  writes,  in  1723,  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Belcher,  "  my  wife  sent  them  a  taste  of  her  Diner." 
It  appeared  to  be  a  recompensing  fashion,  if  invited 
guests  were  unable  to  partake  of  the  dinner  festivi- 
ties, or  if  neighbors  were  ill,  for  the  hostess  to  send 
11 


162  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

a  "  taste  "  of  all  her  viands  to  console  them  for  their 
deprivation.  This  truly  homely  and  neighborly  cus- 
tom lingered  long  in  old  New  England  families  under 
the  very  descriptive  title  of  "  cold  party  ;  "  indeed  it 
lingers  still  in  old-fashioned  towns  and  in  old-fash- 
ioned families. 

In  earlier  days  when  a  noble  dinner  seemed  to 
be  the  form  of  domestic  pleasure  next  in  enjoyment 
to  a  funeral,  a  "  taste  of  the  dinner "  was  truly  a 
most  honorable  attention,  and  a  most  pleasing  one. 


yn 

OLD  COLONIAL  DEINKS  AND  DKINKEES 

The  Englisli  settlers  who  peopled  our  colonies 
were  a  beer  -  drinking  and  ale -drinking  race  —  as 
Shakespeare  said,  they  were  "potent  in  potting." 
None  of  the  hardships  they  had  to  endure  in  the  first 
bitter  years  of  their  new  life  caused  them  more  an- 
noyance than  their  deprivation  of  their  beloved  malt 
liquors.  This  deprivation  began  even  at  the  very 
landing.  They  were  forced  to  depend  on  the  charity  of 
the  ship-masters  for  a  draught  of  beer  on  board  ship, 
drinking  nothing  but  water  ashore.  Bradford,  the 
Pilgrim  Governor,  complained  loudly  and  frequently 
of  his  distress,  while  Higginson,  the  Salem  minister, 
accommodated  himself  more  readily  and  cheerfully 
to  his  changed  circumstances,  and  boasted  quaintly 
in  1629,  "Whereas  my  stomach  could  only  digest 
and  did  require  such  drink  as  was  both  strong  and 
stale,  I  can  and  ofttimes  do  drink  New  England 
water  very  well."  As  Higginson  died  in  a  short 
time,  his  boast  of  his  improved  health  and  praise 
of  the  unwonted  beverage  does  not  carry  the  force 
intended.  Another  early  chronicler,  Roger  Clap, 
writes  that  it  was  "not  accounted  a  strange  thing 


164  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

in  those  days  to  drink  water,"  and  it  was  stated 
that  Winthrop  drank  it  ordinarily.  Wood,  in  his 
"New  England  Prospects,"  says  of  New  England 
water,  "  I  dare  not  preferre  it  before  good  Beere  as 
some  have  done,  but  any  man  would  choose  it  before 
Bad  Beere,  Wheay  or  Buttermilk."  It  was  also 
praised  as  being  "  farr  different  from  the  water  of 
England,  being  not  so  sharp,  but  of  a  fatter  substance, 
and  of  a  more  jettie  colour ;  it  is  thought  there  can 
be  no  better  water  in  the  world." 

But  their  beerless  state  did  not  long  continue,  for 
the  first  luxury  to  be  brought  to  the  new  country  was 
beer,  and  the  /cQloniats^SOQ^,  imported  malt  and 
learned  to  make  beer  from  the  despised  Indian  com, 
and  established  breweries  and  made  laws  governing 
and  controlling  the  manufacture  of  ale  and  beer  ;  for 
the  pious  Puritans  quickly  learned  to  cheat  in  their 
brewing,  using  molasses  and  coarse  sugar.  Molasses 
beer  is  frequently  mentioned  by  Josselyn. 

By  1634,  when  sixpence  was  the  legal  charge  for  a 
meal,  an  ale-quart  of  beer  could  be  bought  for  a  penny, 
and  a  landlord  was  liable  to  ten  shillings  fine  if  he 
made  a  greater  charge,  or  his  liquor  fell  below  .a  cer- 
tain standard  of  quality.  Perhaps  tliis  low  price  was 
established  by  the  crafty  Puritan  magistrates  in  order 
to  prevent  the  possibility  of  profit  by  beer-selling,  and 
thereby  reduce  the  number  of  sellers.  It  was  also 
ordered  that  not  more  than  an  ale-quart  of  beer 
should  be  drunk  out  of  meal-times.  This  was  to  pre- 
vent "  bye-drinking."  Josselyn  complained  of  the 
petty  interference  of  the  law  in  drinking,  saying : 


OLD  COLONIAL  DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      165 

"  At  the  houses  of  entertainment  called  ordinaries  into 
which  a  stranger  went,  he  was  presently  followed  by  one 
appointed  to  that  office  who  would  thrust  himself  into 
his  company  uninvited,  and  if  he  called  for  more  drink 
than  the  officer  thought,  in  his  judgment,  he  could 
soberly  bear  away,  he  would  presently  countermand  it, 
and  appoint  the  proportion  beyond  which  he  could  not 
get  one  drop." 

The  ministers,  also,  who  chanced  to  live  within 
sight  of  the  tavern,  had  a  very  virtuous  custom  of 
watching  the  tavern  door  and  all  who  entered  therein, 
and  going  over  and  "chiding  them"  if  they  remained 
too  long  within  the  cheerful  portals.  With  constables, 
deacons,  the  parson,  and  that  lab-o'-the-tongue — the 
tithing-man — each  on  the  alert  to  keep  every  one  from 
drinking  but  himself,  the  Puritan  had  little  chance  to 
be  a  toper  an  he  would. 

The  colonists  were  fiercely  intolerant  of  intemper- 
ance among  the  Indians.  Laws  were  made  as  early 
as  1633  prohibiting  the  sale  of  strong  waters  to  the 
"inflamed  devilish  bloudy  salvages,"  and  persons 
selling  liquor  to  them  were  sharply  prosecuted  and 
punished.  New  Yorkers  thought  these  laws  over- 
severe,  saying,  deprecatingly,  "  to  prohibit  all  strong 
liquor  to  them  seems  very  hard  and  very  turkish, 
rumm  doth  as  little  hurt  as  the  ffrenchmans  Brandie, 
and  in  the  whole  is  much  more  wholesome."  But 
the  Puritans  knew  of  the  horrors  to  be  dreaded  from 
drunken  Indians. 

So  plentiful  had  the  sale  of  ale  and  beer  become 


166  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

in  1675  that  Cotton  Mather  said  every  other  house  in 
Boston  was  an  ale-house,  and  a  century  later  Gov- 
ernor Pownall  made  the  same  assertion.  The  Puri- 
tan magistrates  in  New  England  made  at  a  very  early 
date  a  decided  stand  not  only  against  excessive  drink- 
ing by  strangers,  but  against  the  habit  of  drunken- 
ness in  their  citizens.  Drunkards  were  in  1636,  in 
Massachusetts,  subject  to  fine  and  imprisonment 
in  the  stocks,  and  sellers  were  forbidden  to  furnish 
the  tippler  with  any  liquor  thereafter.  An  habitual 
drunkard  was  punished  by  having  a  great  D  made 
of  "  Eedd  Cloth  "  hung  aroimd  his  neck,  or  sewed  on 
his  clothing,  and  he  was  disfranchised.  In  1630 
Governor  Winthrop  abolished  the  "  Vain  Custom  "  of 
drinking  healths  at  his  table,  and  in  1639  the  Court 
publicly  ordered  the  cessation  of  the  practice  because 
"  it  was  a  thing  of  no  use,  it  induced  drunkenness 
and  quarrelling,  it  wasted  wine  and  beer.and  it  was 
troublesome  to  many,  forcing  them  to  drink  more 
than  they  wished."  A  fine  of  twelve  shillings  was 
imposed  on  each  health-drinker.  Cotton  Mather, 
however,  thought  health-drinking  a  usage  of  common 
politeness.  In  Connecticut  no  man  could  drink  over 
half  a  pint  of  wine  at  a  time,  or  tipple  over  half  an 
hour,  or  drink  at  all  at  an  ordinary  after  nine  o'clock 
at  night. 

All  these  rigid  laws  had  their  effect,  and  New  Eng- 
landers  throughout  the  seventeenth  century  were 
sober  and  law-abiding  save  in  a  few  communities, 
such  as  that  at  Merrymount,  where  "  good  chear  went 
forward  and  strong  liquors  walked."    Boston  was  an 


OLD  COLONIAL  DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      167 

especially  orderly  town.  Several  visiting  and  resi- 
dent clergyn^en  testified  that  they  had  not  seen  a 
drunken  man  in  the  Massachusetts  Colony  in  many 
years.  The  following  quotation  will  show  how  rare 
was  drunkenness  and  how  abhorred.  Judge  Sewall 
wrote  in  1686 : 

"  Mr.  Shrimpton  and  others  came  in  a  coach  from  Rox- 
bury  about  nine  o'clock  or  past,  singing  as  they  came, 
being  inflamed  with  drink.  At  Justice  Morgans  they  stop 
and  drink  healths  and  curse  and  swear  to  the  great  dis- 
turbance of  the  town  and  grief  of  good  people.  Such 
high-handed  wickedness  has  hardly  before  been  heard  of 
in  Boston.'* 

It  is  well  to  compare  the  orderly,  decorous,  well- 
protected  existence  in  Boston,  with  the  conditions  of 
town  life  in  Old  England  at  that  same  date,  where 
drrmken  young  men  of  fashion  under  the  name 
of  Mohocks,  Scourers,  Hectors,  Muns,  or  Tityriti, 
prowled  the  streets  abusing  and  beating  every  man 
and  woman  they  met — "  sons  of  Belial  flown  with  in- 
solence and  wine ; "  where  turbulent  apprentices  set 
upon  those  the  Mohocks  chanced  to  spare ;  where 
duels  and  intrigues  and  gaming  were  the  order  of  the 
day ;  where  foot-pads,  highwaymen,  and  street  ruff- 
ians robbed  unceasingly  and  with  impunity.  Life  in 
New  England  may  have  been  dull  and  monotonous, 
but  women  could  go  through  the  streets  in  safety,  and 
Judge  Sewall  could  stumble  home  alone  in  the  dark 
from  his  love-making  without  fear  of  molestation ; 
and  when  he  found  a  party  of  young  men  singing  and 


168  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

making  too  mucli  noise  in  a  tavern,  lie  could  go  among 
tliem  uninsulted,  and  could  get  them  to  meekly  write 
do\^Ti  their  own  names  with  his  "  Pensil "  for  him  to 
bring  them  up  and  fine  them  the  next  day. 

Still,  the  Judge,  though  he  hated  noisy  revellers, 
was  no  total  abstainer.  He  speaks  of  "  grace  cups  " 
and  "  treating  the  Deputies,"  and  sent  gifts  of  wine 
to  his  friends.  I  find  in  his  diary  references  to  these 
drinks:  Ale,  beer,  mead,  metheglin,  tea,  chocolate, 
sage  tea,  cider,  wine,  sillabub,  claret,  sack,  canary, 
punch,  sack-posset,  and  black  cherry  brandy. 

Sack,  the  drink  of  Shakespeare's  day,  beloved  and 
praised  of  Falstaff,  was  passing  out  of  date  in  Sewall's 
time.  Winthrop  tells  of  four  ships  coming  into  port 
in  1646  with  eight  hundred  butts  of  sack  on  board. 
In  1634  ordinaries  were  forbidden  to  sell  it,  hence 
the  sack  found  but  a  poor  market.  Sack-posset  was 
made  of  ale  and  sack,  thickened  with  eggs  and  cream, 
seasoned  with  nutmeg,  mace,  and  sugar,  then  boiled 
on  the  fire  for  hours,  and  made  a." very  pretty  drink" 
for  weddings  and  feasts. 

Canary  wine  was  imported  at  that  time  in  large 
quantities.  In  the  first  year's  issue  of  the  Neios  Let- 
ter were  advertised  "  Fyall  wine  sold  by  the  Pipe ; 
Passados  &  Eight  Canary."  The  Winthrops  in  their 
letters  make  frequent  mention  of  Canary,  as  also  of 
"Yendredi"  and  "Palme  Wine."  Wait  Winthrop 
said  the  latter  was  better  than  Canary.  Tent  wine 
also  was  sent  to  the  colonists. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  the  sanguine  settlers 
aspired,  even  in  bleak  New  England,  to  the  home  pro- 


OLD   COLONIAL   DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      169 

duction  of  wine.  "Yine  planters"  were  asked  for 
the  colony  in  1629.  The  nse  of  Governor's  Island 
in  Massachusetts  Bay  was  granted  to  Governor  Win- 
throp  in  1634  for  a  vineyard,  for  an  annual  rental  of  a 
hogshead  of  wine,  which  at  a  later  date  was  changed  to 
a  yearly  payment  of  two  barrels  of  apples.  The  French 
settlers  also  planted  vineyards  in  Ehode  Island. 

Claret  was  not  much  loved  by  the  planters,  who 
had  a  taste  for  the  sweet  sack.  Morton  tells  that  for 
his  revellers  he  "  broched  a  hogshead,  caused  them 
to  fill  the  Can  with  Lusty  liquor — Claret  sparklinge 
neat — which  was  not  suffered  to  grow  pale  &  flat  but 
tipled  off  with  quick  dexterity."  Mumm,  a  fat  ale 
made  of  oat-malt  and  wheat-malt,  appears  frequently 
in  early  importations  and  accounts.  The  sillabub  of 
which  Sewall  speaks  was  made  with  cider  and  was 
not  boiled : 

*'Fill  your  Sillabub  Pot  with  Syder  (for  that  is  best  for 
a  Sillabub)  and  good  store  of  Sugar  and  a  little  Nutmeg, 
stir  it  wel  together,  put  in  as  much  thick  Cream  by  two 
or  three  spoonfuls  at  a  time,  as  hard  as  you  can  as  though 
you  milke  it  in,  then  stir  it  together  exceeding  softly 
once  about  and  let  it  stand  two  hours  at  least." 

Other  mild  fermented  drinks  than  beer  were  made 
and  drunk  in  colonial  days  in  large  quantities.  Mead 
and  metheglin,  wherewith  the  Druids  and  old  English 
bards  were  wont  to  carouse,  were  made  from  water, 
honey,  and  yeast.  Here  is  an  old  receipt  for  the  lat- 
ter drink,  which  some  colonists  pronounced  as  good 
as  Malaga  sack. 


170  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

"  Take  all  sorts  of  Hearbs  that  are  good  and  wholesome 
as  Balme,  Mint,  Fennel,  Rosemary,  Angelica,  wilde  Tyme, 
Isop,  Burnet,  Egrimony,  and  such  other  as  you  think  fit ; 
some  Field  Hearbs,  but  you  must  not  put  in  too  many, 
but  especially  Rosemary  or  any  Strong  Hearb,  lesse  than 
halfe  a  handfull  will  serve  of  every  sorte,  you  must  boyl 
your  Hearbs  &  strain  them,  and  let  the  liquor  stand  till 
to  Morrow  and  settle  them,  take  off  the  clearest  Liquor, 
two  Gallons  &  a  halfe  to  one  Gallon  of  Honey,  and  that 
proportion  as  much  as  you  will  make,  and  let  it  boyle  an 
houre,  and  in  the  boyling  skim  it  very  clear,  then  set  it  a 
cooling  as  you  doe  Beere,  when  it  is  cold  take  some  very 
good  Ale  Barme  and  put  into  the  bottome  of  the  Tubb  a 
little  and  a  little  as  they  do  Beere,  keeping  back  the 
thicke  Setling  that  lyeth  in  the  bottome  of  the  Vessel  that 
it  is  cooled  in,  and  when  it  is  all  put  together  cover  it 
with  a  Cloth  and  let  it  worke  very  neere  three  dayes,  and 
when  you  mean  to  put  it  up,  skim  off  all  the  Barme  clean, 
put  it  up  into  the  Vessel,  but  you  must  not  stop  your 
Vessel  very  close  in  three  or  four  dayes  but  let  it  have  all 
the  vent,  for  it  will  worke  and  when  it  is  close  stopped 
you  must  looke  very  often  to  it  and  have  a  peg  in  the  top 
to  give  it  vent,  when  you  heare  it  make  a  noise  as  it  will 
do,  or  else  it  will  breake  the  Vessell ;  sometime  I  make  a 
bag  and  put  in  good  store  of  Ginger  sliced,  some  Cloves 
and  Cinnamon  and  boyl  it  in,  and  other  time  I  put  it  into 
the  Barrel  and  never  boyl  it,  it  is  both  good,  but  Nutmeg 
&  Mace  do  not  well  to  my  Tast." 

In  the  list  of  values  fixed  by  the  Piscataqua  plant- 
ers in  1633,  "6  Gallons  Mathaglin  were  equal  to  2 
lb.  Beauer."    In  the  middle  of  the  century  metheglin 


OLD   COLONIAL  DRINKS  AND  DRINKERS      171 

was  worth  ten  shillings  a  barrel  in  the  Connecticut 
VaUey. 

Though  mild,  these  drinks  were  intoxicating.  One 
could  "  get  fox'd  e'en  with  foolish  matheglin."  Old 
James  Howel  says,  "  metheglin  does  stupefy  more 
than  any  other  liquor  if  taken  immoderately  and 
keeps  a  humming  in  the  brain  which  made  one  say  he 
loved  not  metheglin  because  he  was  wont  to  speak  too 
much  of  the  house  he  came  from,  meaning  the  hive." 

Bradford  tells  of  backsliders  from  Merrymount 
who  "  abased  themselves  disorderly  with  drinking 
too  much  stronge  drinke  aboard  the  Freindshipp." 
This  strong  drink  was  metheglin,  of  which  two  hogs- 
heads were  to  be  delivered  at  Plymouth.  But  after 
it  was  transferred  to  wooden  "  flackets "  in  Boston, 
these  Friendship  merrymakers  contrived  to  "  drinke 
it  up  under  the  name  leackage  "  till  but  six  gallons  of 
the  metheglin  arrived  at  Plymouth. 

"  Cyder  famed "  was  made  at  an  early  date  from 
the  fruitful  apple-trees  so  faithfully  planted  by  Endi- 
cott,  Blackstone,  and  other  settlers.  Cider  was  cheap 
enough;  Josselyn  wrote,  "I  have  had  at  the  tap 
houses  of  Boston  an  ale -quart  of  cyder  spiced  and 
sweetened  with  sugar,  for  a  groat." 

This  was  not  the  New  England  nectar  or  Passada 
which  he  praised  so  highly  and  which  was  thus 
made — 

"  Take  of  Malligo  Raisins,  stamp  them  and  put  milk  to 
them  and  put  them  to  a  Hippocras  Bag  and  let  it  drain 
out  of  itself  and  put  a  quantity  of  this  with  a  spoonful  or 


172  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

two  of  Syrup  of  Clove  Gilly-flowers  into  every  bottle  when 
you  bottle  your  Syder,  and  your  Planter  will  have  a  liquor 
that  exceeds  Passada,  the  Nectar  of  the  Country." 

Cider  was  made  at  first  by  pounding  the  apples  by 
hand  in  wooden  mortars ;  sometimes  the  pomace  was 
pressed  in  baskets.  Rude  mills  were  then  formed 
with  a  hollowed  log,  and  a  heavy  weight  or  maul  on 
a  spring-board.  Cider  soon  became  the  common 
drink  of  the  people,  and  it  was  made  in  vast  quanti- 
ties. In  1671  five  hundred  hogsheads  were  made 
of  one  orchard's  produce.  One  village  of  forty  fam- 
ilies made  three  thousand  barrels  in  1721.  Bennet 
wrote  in  1740,  "Cider  being  cheap  and  the  people 
used  to  it  they  do  not  encourage  malt  liquors. 
They  pay  about  three  shillings  a  barrel  for  cider." 
It  was  freely  used  even  by  the  children  at  breakfast, 
as  well  as  at  dinner,  up  to  the  end  of  the  first  quarter 
of  the  present  century,  when  many  zealous  followers 
so  eagerly  embraced  the  new  temperance  reform  that 
they  cut  down  whole  orchards  of  thriving  apple-trees, 
conceiving  no  possibility  of  the  general  use  of  the 
fruit  for  food  instead  of  drink. 

Charles  Francis  Adams  says  that  "  to  the  end  of 
John  Adams's  life  a  large  tankard  of  hard  cider  was  his 
morning  draught  before  breakfast." 

Cider  was  supplied  in  large  amounts  to  students  at 
college  at  dinner  and  "  bever,"  being  passed  in  two 
two-quart  tankards  from  hand  to  hand  down  the  com- 
mons table.  It  was  given  liberally  to  all  travellers 
and  wanderers  who  chanced  to  stop  at  the  farmer's 


OLD  COLONIAL  DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      173 

door ;  to  all  workmen  and  farm  laborers ;  and  an 
"  Indian  barrel,"  whose  contents  were  for  free  gift  to 
every  tramp  Indian  or  squaw,  was  found  in  many  a 
farmer's  cellar. 

A  traveller  in  Maine  just  after  the  Ke volution  said 
that  their  cider  was  purified  by  the  frost,  colored  with 
corn,  and  looked  and  tasted  like  Madeira. 

Beverige  also  was  drunk  by  the  colonists.  This 
name  was  applied  to  various  mild  and  watery  drinks. 
In  the  West  Indies  the  juice  of  the  sugar-cane  mixed 
with  water  was  so  called.  In  Devonshire,  water  which 
had  been  pressed  through  the  lees  of  a  cider-mill  was 
called  beverige.  In  other  parts  of  England  water, 
cider,  and  spices  formed  beverige.  In  New  England 
the  concoction  varied,  but  was  uniformly  innocuous 
and  weak — the  colonial  prototype  of  our  modern 
"temperance  drinks."  In  many  country  houses  a 
summer  drink  of  water  flavored  with  molasses  and 
ginger  was  called  beverige.  The  advertisement  in  the 
Boston  Neivs  Letter,  August  16th,  1711,  of  the  sale  of 
the  captured  Neptune  with  her  lading,  at  the  ware- 
house of  Andrew  Fanueil,  had  "Wine,  Vinegar  and 
Beveridge  "  on  the  list.  This  must  have  been  stronger 
stuff  than  molasses  and  water,  to  have  been  worth 
barrelling  and  sending  across  the  water. 

Switchel  was  a  drink  similar  to  beverige,  but  when 
served  out  to  sailors  was  strengthened  by  a  little  vine- 
gar and  rum.  The  name  was  commonly  used  in  New 
Hampshire  and  central  Massachusetts.  Ebulum  was 
made  of  the  juices  of  the  elder  and  juniper  berries 
mixed  with  ale  and  spices. 


174  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Perry  was  made  to  some  extent  from  pears,  and  was 
advertised  for  sale  in  the  Boston  News  Letter,  and  one 
traveller  told  of  "peachy"  made  from  peaches. 
Spruce  and  birch  beer  were  brewed  by  mixing  a  de- 
coction of  sassafras,  birch,  or  spruce  bark  with  mo- 
lasses and  water,  or  by  boiling  the  twigs  in  maple  sap, 
or  by  boiling  together  pumpkin  and  apple-parings, 
water,  malt,  and  roots.  Many  curious  makeshifts 
were  resorted  to  in  the  early  days.  One  old  song 
boasted 

*  *  Oh  we  can  make  liquor  to  sweeten  our  lips 
Of  pumpkins,  of  parsnips,  of  walnut-tree  chips." 

Fiercer  liquors  were  not  lacking.  Aqua-vitae,  a 
general  name  for  strong  waters,  was  brought  over  in 
large  quantities  during  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
sold  for  about  three  shillings  a  gallon.  Cider  was 
distilled  into  cider  brandy,  or  apple-jack  ;  and  when, 
by  1670,  molasses  had  come  into  port  in  considerable 
quantity  through  the  West  India  trade,  the  forests  of 
New  England  supplied  plentiful  and  cheap  fuel  to 
convert  it  into  "  rhum,  a  strong  water  drawn  from  the 
sugar  cane."  In  a  manuscript  description  of  Barba- 
does,  written  in  1651,  we  read :  "  The  chief  fudling  they 
make  in  this  island  is  Eumbullion  alias  Kill  Divil— a 
hot  hellish  and  terrible  liquor."  It  was  called  in 
some  localities  Barbadoes  liquor,  and  by  the  Indians 
"  ahcoobee  "  or  "  ockuby,"  a  word  of  the  Nomdge- 
wock  tongue.  John  Eliot  spelled  it "  rumb,"  and  Josse- 
lyn  called  it  plainly  "  that  cussed  liquor,  Ehum,  rum- 
bullion, or  kill-devil."    It  went  by  the  latter  name 


OLD   COLONIAL  DEINKS   AND  DETNKERS      175 

and  rumbooze  everywhere,  and  was  soon  cheap 
enough.  Increase  Mather  said,  in  1686,  "It  is  an 
unhappy  thing  that  in  later  years  a  Kind  of  Drink 
called  Bum  has  been  common  among  us.  They  that 
are  poor,  and  wicked  too,  can  for  a  penny  or  two- 
pence make  themselves  drunk."  Burke  said,  at  a  later 
date,  "The  quantity  of  spirits  which  they  distil  in 
Boston  from  the  molasses  they  import  is  as  surpris- 
ing as  the  cheapness  at  which  they  sell  it,  which  is 
under  two  shillings  a  gallon ;  but  they  are  more 
famous  for  the  quantity  and  cheapness  than  for  the 
excellency  of  their  rum."  In  1719,  and  fifty  years 
later,  New  England  rum  was  worth  but  three  shillings 
a  gallon,  while  West  India  rum  was  worth  but  two- 
pence more.  New  England  distilleries  quickly  found 
a  more  lucrative  way  of  disposing  of  their  "kill- 
devil  "  than  by  selling  it  at  such  cheap  rates.  Ships 
laden  with  barrels  of  rum  were  sent  to  the  African 
coast,  and  from  thence  they  returned  with  a  most 
valuable  lading — negro  slaves.  Along  the  coast  of 
Africa  New  England  rum  quite  drove  out  French 
brandy. 

The  Irish  and  Scotch  settlers  knew  how  to  make 
whiskey  from  rye  and  wheat,  and  they  soon  learned 
to  manufacture  it  from  barley  and  potatoes,  and  even 
from  the  despised  Indian  corn. 

Not  content  with  their  own  manufactured  liquors, 
the  thirsty  colonists  imported  strong  waters,  gin 
and  aniseseed  cordial  from  Holland,  and  wine  from 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  Canaries.  Of  these,  fiery 
Madeiras  were  the  favorite  of  all  fashionable  folk, 


176  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

and  often  each  glass  of  wine  was  strengthened  by  a  lib- 
eral dash  of  brandy.  Bennet  wrote,  in  1740,  of  Bos- 
ton society,  "  Madeira  wine  and  rum  punch  are  the 
liquors  they  drink  in  common."  Though  "spiced 
punch  in  bowls  the  Indians  quaffed "  in  1665,  I  do 
not  know  of  the  Oriental  mixed  drink  in  New  Eng- 
land till  1682,  when  John  Winthrop  writes  of  the 
sale  of  a  punch-bowl.  In  1686  John  Dunton  had 
more  than  one  "  noble  bowl  of  punch,"  during  his 
visit  to  New  England.  The  word  punch  was  from 
the  East  Indian  word  paiich,  meaning  five.  S.  M. 
(who  was  probably  Samuel  Mather)  sent  these  lines 
to  Sir  Harry  Frankland  in  1757,  with  the  gift  of  a 
box  of  lemons : 

"You  know  from  Eastern  India  came 
The  skill  of  making  punch  as  did  the  name. 
And  as  the  name  consists  of  letters  five, 
Bj  five  ingredients  is  it  kept  alive. 
To  purest  water  sugar  must  be  joined, 
With  these  the  grateful  acid  is  combined. 
Some  any  sours  they  get  contented  use, 
But  men  of  taste  do  that  from  Tagus  choose. 
"When  now  these  three  are  mixed  with  care 
Then  added  be  of  spirit  a  small  share. 
And  that  you  may  the  drink  quite  perfect  see 
Atop  the  musky  nut  must  grated  be." 

Every  buffet  of  people  of  fashion  contained  a 
punch-bowl,  every  dinner  was  prefaced  by  a  bowl  of 
punch,  which  was  passed  from  hand  to  hand  and 
drunk  from  without  intervening  glasses.  J.  Crosby, 
at  the  Box  of  Lemons,  in  Boston,  sold  for  thirty  years 


OLD   COLONIAL   DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      177 

lime  juice  and  shrub  and  lemons,  and  sour  oranges 
and  orange  juice  (which  some  punch  tasters  preferred 
to  lemon  juice),  to  flavor  Boston  punches. 

Double  and  "  thribble  "  bowls  of  punch  were  com- 
monly served,  holding  respectively  two  and  three 
quarts  each,  and  many  existing  bills  show  what  large 
amounts  were  drunk.  Governor  Hancock  gave  a  din- 
ner to  the  Fusileers  at  the  Merchants'  Club,  in  Bos- 
ton, in  1792.  As  eighty  dinners  were  paid  for  I 
infer  there  were  eighty  diners.  They  drank  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  bowls  of  punch,  besides  twenty- 
one  bottles  of  sherry  and  a  large  quantity  of  cider 
and  brandy.  An  abstract  of  an  election  dinner  to  the 
General  Court  of  Massachusetts  in  1769,  showed  two 
hundred  diners,  and  seventy-two  bottles  of  Madeira,  ^ 
twenty-eight  bottles  of  Lisbon  wine,  ten  of  claret, 
seventeen  of  port,  eighteen  of  porter,  fifteen  double 
bowls  of  punch  and  a  quantity  of  cider.  The  clergy 
were  not  behind  the  military  and  the  magistrates.  In 
the  record  of  the  ordination  of  Eev.  Joseph  McKean, 
in  Beverly,  Mass.,  in  1785,  these  items  are  found  in 
the  tavern-keeper's  bill : 

80  Bowles  of  Punch  before  the  People  went  to  meeting.  3 

80  people  eating  in  the  morning  at  IQd 6 

10  bottles  of  wine  before  they  went  to  meeting 1  10 

68  dinners  at  3s 10  4 

44  bowles  of  punch  while  at  dinner 4  8 

18  bottles  of  wine 2  14 

8  bowles  of  Brandy 1  2 

Cherry  Rum 1  10 

6  people  drank  tea dd 

12 


178  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

The  six  mild  tea-drinkers  and  their  economical 
beverage  seem  to  put  a  finishing  and  fairly  comic 
touch  to  this  ordination  bill.  "When  we  read  such 
renderings  of  accounts  we  think  it  natural  that 
Baron  Eeidesel  wrote  of  New  England  inhabitants, 
"  most  of  the  males  have  a  strong  passion  for  strong 
drink,  especially  rum  and  other  alcoholic  beverages." 
John  Adams  said,  "  if  the  ancients  drank  wine  as  our 
people  drink  rum  and  cider  it  is  no  wonder  we  hear 
of  so  many  possessed  with  devils." 

The  cost  of  these  various  drinks  was  thus  given 
about  Revolutionary  times  in  Bristol,  B.  I.: 

*  *  Nip  of  Grog Qd 

Dubelboleof  Tod 2s     Qd 

Dubel  bole  of  punch 8« 

Nip  of  punch Is 

Brandi  Sling Sd 

Flip  was  a  vastly  popular  drink,  and  continued  to 
be  so  for  a  century  and  a  half.  I  find  it  spoken  of  as 
early  as  1690.  It  was  made  of  home-brewed  beer, 
sweetened  with  sugar,  molasses,  or  dried  pumpkin, 
and  flavored  with  a  liberal  dash  of  rum,  then  stirred 
in  a  great  mug  or  pitcher  with  a  red-hot  loggerhead 
or  hottle  or  flip-dog,  which  made  the  liquor  foam  and 
gave  it  a  burnt  bitter  flavor. 

Landlord  May,  of  Canton,  Mass.,  made  a  famous 
brew  thus :  he  mixed  four  pounds  of  sugar,  four  eggs, 
and  one  pint  of  cream  and  let  it  stand  for  two  days. 
When  a  mug  of  flip  was  called  for,  he  filled  a  quart 
mug  two-thirds  full  of  beer,  placed  in  it  four  great 


I 


OLD   COLONIAL  DRINKS  AND  DRINKEKS      179 

spoonfuls  of  the  compound,  then  thrust  in  the  seeth- 
ing loggerhead,  and  added  a  gill  of  rum  to  the  creamy 
mixture.  If  a  fresh  egg  were  beaten  into  the  flip  the 
drink  was  called  "  bellows-top,"  and  the  froth  rose  over 
the  top  of  the  mug.  "  Stone- wall  "  was  a  most  intoxi- 
cating mixture  of  cider  and  rum.  "  Calibogus,"  or 
"  bogus,"  was  cold  rum  and  beer  unsweetened. 
"  Black-strap  "  was  a  mixture  of  rum  and  molasses. 
Casks  of  it  stood  in  every  country  store,  a  salted 
and  dried  codfish  slyly  hung  alongside — a  free  lunch 
to  be  stripped  off  and  eaten,  and  thus  tempt,  through 
thirst,  the  purchase  of  another  draught  of  black-strap. 

A  terrible  drink  is  said  to  have  been  popular  in 
Salem — a  drink  with  a  terrible  name — whistle-belly- 
vengeance.  It  consisted  of  sour  household  beer  sim- 
mered in  a  kettle,  sweetened  with  molasses,  filled 
with  brown-bread  crumbs  and  drunk  piping  hot. 

Of  course  many  protests,  though  chiefly  on  the 
ground  of  wasteful  expense,  were  made,  even  in  ante- 
temperance  days,  against  the  drinking  which  grew  so 
prevalent  with  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Eev.  Andrew  Eliot  wrote  in  1735,  "  'Tis  sur- 
prising what  prodigious  sums  are  expended  for 
spirituous  liquors  in  this  one  poor  Province — more 
than  a  million  of  our  old  currency  in  a  year."  Dr. 
Tenney  lamented  that  the  taverns  of  Exeter,  N.  H., 
were  thronged  with  people  who  seldom  retired  sober. 
Strenuous  but  ineffectual  efforts  were  made  to  "  pre- 
ent  tippling  in  the  forenoon,"  and  between  meals ; 
but  with  little  avail.  The  temperance-reform  of  our 
own  century  came  none  too  soon. 


180  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Tea  was  too  Hgli  priced  in  the  first  lialf -century  of 
its  Occidental  use  to  have  been  frequently  seen  in 
New  England.  Judge  Sewall  mentioned  it  but  once 
in  his  diary.  He  drank  it  at  Madam  Winthrop's 
house  in  1709  at  a  Thursday  lecture,  but  he  does  not 
note  it  as  a  rarity.  In  1690,  however,  when  not  over- 
plentiful  in  old  England,  Benjamin  Harris  and  Daniel 
Yemon  were  licensed  to  sell  it  "  in  publique  "  in  Bos- 
ton. In  1712  "  green  and  ordinary  teas  "  were  adver- 
tised in  the  apothecary's  list  of  Zabdiel  Boylston. 
Bohea  tea  came  in  1713,  and  in  1715  tea  was  sold  in 
the  coffee-houses.  Some  queer  mistakes  were  made 
through  the  employment  of  the  herb  as  food.  In 
Salem  it  was  boiled  for  a  long  time  till  bitter,  and 
drunk  without  milk  or  sugar  ;  and  the  tea-leaves  were 
buttered,  salted,  and  eaten.  In  more  than  one  town 
the  liquid  tea  was  thrown  away  and  the  carefully 
cooked  leaves  were  eaten. 

The  new  China  drink  did  not  have  a  wholly  savory 
reputation.  It  was  called  a  "  damned  weed,"  a  *'  de- 
testable weed,"  a  "  base  exotick,"  a  "  rank  poison  far- 
fetched and  dear  bought,"  a  "base  and  unworthy 
Indian  drink,"  and  various  ill  effects  were  attributed 
to  it — the  decay  of  the  teeth,  and  even  the  loss  of 
the  mental  faculties.  But  the  Abbe  Kobin  thought 
the  ability  of  the  Revolutionary  soldiers  to  endure  mil- 
itary flogging  came  from  the  use  of  tea.  And  others 
thought  it  cured  the  spleen  and  indigestion. 

As  the  day  drew  near  when  tea-drinking  was  to 
become  the  great  turning-point  of  our  national  lib- 
erty, the  spirit  of  noble  revolt  led  many  dames  to 


OLD   COLONIAL   DRINKS   AND   DRINKERS      181 

join  in  bands  to  abandon  the  use  of  the  unjustly 
taxed  herb,  and  societies  were  formed  of  members 
pledged  to  drink  no  tea.  Five  hundred  women  so 
banded  together  in  Boston.  Various  substitutes  were 
employed  in  the  place  of  the  much-loved  but  rigidly 
abjured  herb,  Liberty  Tea  being  the  most  esteemed. 
It  was  thus  made :  the  four-leaved  loose-strife  was 
pulled  up  like  flax,  its  stalks  were  stripped  of  the 
leaves  and  boiled;  the  leaves  were  put  in  ail  iron 
kettle  and  basted  with  the  liquor  from  the  stalks. 
Then  the  leaves  were  put  in  an  oven  and  dried.  Lib- 
erty Tea  sold  for  sixpence  a  pound.  It  was  drunk  at 
every  spinning-bee,  quilting,  or  other  gathering  of 
women.  Bibwort  was  also  used  to  make  a  so-called 
tea — strawberry  and  currant  leaves,  sage,  and  even 
strong  medicinal  herbs  likewise:  Hyperion  tea  was 
made  from  raspberry  leaves.  An  advertisement  of 
the  day  thus  reads  : 

"The  use  of  Hyperion  or  Labrador  tea  is  every  day 
coming  into  vogue  among  people  of  all  ranks.  The  virt- 
ues of  the  plant  or  shrub  from  which  this  delicate  Tea  is 
gathered  were  first  discovered  by  the  Aborigines,  and 
from  them  the  Canadians  learned  them.  Before  the  ces- 
sion of  Canada  to  Great  Britain  we  knew  little  or  nothing 
of  this  most  excellent  herb,  but  since  that  we  have  been 
taught  to  find  it  growing  all  over  hill  and  dale  between 
the  Lat.  40  and  60.  It  is  found  all  over  New  England  in 
great  plenty  and  that  of  best  quality  particularly  on  the 
banks  of  the  Penobscot,  Kennebec,  Nichewannock,  and 
Merrimac." 


182  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

The  proportion  of  tea  used  in  America  is  now  less 
than  in  England,  and  the  proportion  of  coffee  much 
larger.  This  is  wholly  the  result  of  national  habits 
formed  through  patriotic  abstinence  from  tea-drink- 
ing in  those  glorious  "  Liberty  Days." 

The  first  mention  of  coffee,  as  given  by  Dr.  Lyon, 
is  in  the  record  of  the  license  of  Dorothy  Jones,  of 
Boston,  in  1670,  to  sell  "Coffe  and  chuchaletto." 
At  intervals  of  a  few  years  other  innkeepers  were 
licensed  to  sell  it,  and  by  the  beginning  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  coffee-houses  were  established.  Cof- 
fee dishes,  coffee-pots,  and  coffee-mugs  appear  in 
inventories,  and  show  how  quickly  and  eagerly  the 
fragrant  berry  was  sought  for  in  private  families.  As 
with  tea,  its  method  of  preparation  as  a  beverage 
seemed  somewhat  uncertain  in  some  minds ;  and  it  is 
said  that  the  whole  beans  were  frequently  boiled  for 
some  hours  with  not  wholly  pleasing  results  in  form- 
ing either  food  or  drink.  After  a  few  years  "  coffee- 
powder  "  was  offered  for  sale. 

Chocolate  became  equally  popular.  Sewall  often 
drank  it,  once  certainly  as  early  as  1697,  at  the  Lieu- 
tenant-G  overnor's,  with  a  breakfast  of  venison.  Win- 
throp  says  it  was  scarce  in  1698.  Madam  Knight 
took  it  with  her  on  her  journey  in  1704.  "  I  told  her 
I  had  some  chocolate  if  she  would  prepare  it,  which, 
with  the  help  of  some  milk  and  a  little  clean  brass 
kettle,  she  soon  effected  to  my  satisfaction."  Mills  to 
grind  cocoa  were  quickly  established  in  Boston,  and 
were  advertised  in  the  News  Letter, 

Even  in  the  early  days  of  our  Bepublic  there  were 


OLD   COLONIAL  DRINKS    AND   DRINKERS      183 

reformers  who  wished  to  establish  the  use  of  tem- 
perance drinks,  which  were  not,  however,  exactly  the 
same  liquids  now  so  called.  A  writer  in  the  Boston 
Evening  Post  wrote  forcibly  on  the  subject,  and  a 
Philadelphia  paper  published  this  statement  on  July 
23d,  1788: 

''A  correspondent  wishes  that  a  monument  could  be 
erected  in  Union  Green  with  the  following  inscription. 
In  Honour  of 

American  Beer  and  Cyder. 
It  is  hereby  recorded  for  the  information  of  strangers 
and  posterity  that  17,000  Assembled  in  this  Green  on 
the  4th  of  July  1788  to  celebrate  the  establishment  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  they  de- 
parted at  an  early  hour  without  intoxication  or  a  single 
quarrel.  They  drank  nothing  but  Beer  and  Cyder.  Learn 
Reader  to  prize  these  invaluable  Hquors  and  to  consider 
them  as  the  companions  of  those  virtues  which  can  alone 
render  our  country  free  and  reputable. 

Learn  likewise  to  Despise 

Spirituous  Liquors  as  Anti  Federal 

and  to  consider  them  as  the  companions  of  all  those  vices 

which  are  calculated  to  dishonor  and  enslave  our  country." 


yni 

TEAYEL,  TAVEEN,  AND  TUENPIKE 

"When  New  England  was  colonized,  the  European 
emigrants  were  forced  to  content  themselves  with  the 
rude  means  of  transportation  which  were  employed  by 
the  aborigines.  The  favorite  way  back  and  forth  from 
Plymouth  to  Boston  and  Cape  Ann  was  by  water,  by 
skirting  the  shore  in  birchen  pinnaces  or  dugouts 
— hollowed  pine  logs  about  twenty  feet  long  and  two 
and  a  half  feet  wide — in  which  Johnson  said  the 
savages  ventured  two  leagues  out  at  sea.  There  were 
few  horses,  and  the  few  were  too  valuable  for  domestic 
work  to  be  spared  for  travel,  hence  the  journey er 
must  go  by  water,  or  on  foot.  When  Bradstreet  was 
sent  to  Dover  as  Eoyal  Commissioner,  he  walked  the 
entire  distance  there,  and  back  to  Boston,  by  narrow 
Indian  paths. 

The  many  estuaries  and  river-mouths  that  inter- 
sected the  coast  also  made  travel  on  horseback  diffi- 
cult. Foot-passengers,  however,  could  cross  the  nar- 
row streams  by  natural  ford-ways,  or  on  fallen  trees, 
which  were  ordered  to  be  put  in  proper  place  by  the 
colonial  government ;  and  the  broader  rivers  by  canoe 
ferries.      We  see,  through  the  record  of  one  journey, 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     185 

the  dignified  Governor  of  Massacliusetts  carried  across 
the  ford-ways  pick-a-pack  on  the  shoulders  of  his 
stalwart  Indian  guide. 

But  soon  the  settlers,  true  to  their  English  instincts 
and  habits,  turned  their  attention  to  the  breeding  of 
horses.  They  imported  many  fine  animals,  and  the 
magistrates  framed  laws  intended  to  improve  the  im- 
ported stock.  The  history  of  horse-raising  in  New 
England  is  akin  to  that  of  any  other  country,  save  in 
one  respect.  In  Ehode  Island  the  breeding  of  horses 
resulted  in  that  famous  and  first  distinctively  Ameri- 
ican  breed — the  Narragansett  Pacers. 

The  first  suggestion  of  horse-raising  in  Narragan- 
sett  was,  without  doubt,  given  by  Sewall's  father-in- 
law.  Captain  John  Hull,  of  Pine  Tree  Shilling  fame, 
who  was  one  of  the  original  purchasers  of  the  Peta- 
quamscut  Tract,  or  Narragansett,  from  the  Indians. 
He  wrote,  in  April,  1677  : 

'*I  have  often  thought  if  we,  the  partners  of  Point 
Judith  Neck  did  fence  with  a  good  stone  wall  at  the  north 
end  thereof,  that  no  kind  of  horses  or  cattle  might  get 
thereon,  and  also  what  other  parts  thereof  westerly  were 
needful,  and  procure  a  very  good  breed  of  large  and  fair 
mares  and  horses,  and  that  no  mongrel  breed  might  come 
among  them,  we  might  have  a  very  choice  breed  for 
coach  horses,  some  for  the  saddle  and  some  for  draught ; 
and  in  a  few  years  might  draw  off  considerable  numbers 
and  ship  them  for  Barbadoes  Nevis  or  such  parts  of  the 
Indies  where  they  would  vend." 


186  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

This  scheme  was  doubtless  carried  into  effect,  for 
in  1686  Dudley  and  his  associates  ordered  thirty 
horses  to  be  seized  in  Narragansett  and  sold  to  pay 
for  building  a  jail. 

In  a  later  letter  Hull  accuses  William  Heiffernan 
of  horse-stealing,  and  shows  that  a  different  and 
more  gentle  method  than  Western  lynch-law  was 
pursued  by  the  Eastern  settlers.     He  writes : 

"lam  informed  that  you  were  so  shameless  that  you 
offered  to  sell  some  of  my  horses.  I  would  have  you 
kuow  that  they  are  by  Gods  good  Providence,  mine.  Do 
you  bring  me  some  good  security  for  my  money  that  is 
justly  owing  and  I  shall  be  willing  to  give  you  some 
horses  that  you  shall  not  need  to  offer  to  steal  any.'* 

Whatever  the  means  may  have  been  that  tended  to 
the  establishment  of  a  distinct  breed  of  horses,  the 
result  was  soon  evident ;  by  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  Narragansett  Pacers  were 
known  throughout  the  colonies  as  a  desirable  breed 
of  saddle-horses. 

The  local  conditions  for  raising  this  breed  were 
favorable.  The  soil  of  Narragansett  was  rich,  the 
crops  large,  the  natural  formation  of  the  land  made 
it  possible  to  fence  it  easily  and  with  little  expense — 
a  thing  of  much  importance  in  a  new  land.  The  bay, 
the  ocean,  and  the  chain  of  half  salt  lakes  surrounding 
the  three  sides,  left  but  a  short  northern  length  for 
stone  wall,  as  Hull  suggested. 

It  is  said  that  the  progenitor  or  most  important 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     187 

sire  of  this  race  was  imported  from  Andalusia  by 
Governor  Eobinson.  Another  tradition  is  that  this 
horse,  while  swimming  oif  the  coast  of  Spain,  was 
picked  up  by  a  Narragansett  sloop  and  brought  to 
America.  Thomas  Hazard  contributed  to  the  quality 
of  endurance  in  the  breed  by  introducing  into  it  the 
blood  of  "  Old  Snip."  So  celebrated  did  the  qualities 
of  this  horse  become  that  the  "  Snip  breed  "  was  not 
only  spoken  of  with  regard  to  the  horses,  but  of  the 
owners  as  w^ell,  and  Hazards  who  did  not  possess  the 
distinguishing  race -characteristic  of  self-will  were  said 
not  to  be  "  true  Snips."  Old  Snip  was  said  to  have 
been  imported  from  Tripoli ;  others  assert  (and  it 
is  generally  believed)  that  he  was  a  wild  horse  run- 
ning at  large  in  the  tract  near  Point  Judith. 

In  the  year  1711  Eip  Van  Dam,  a  prominent  citizen 
of  New  York,  and  at  a  later  date  Governor  of  the 
State,  wrote  to  Jonathan  Dickinson,  an  early  mayor 
of  Philadelphia,  a  very  amusing  account  of  his  own- 
ership of  a  Narragansett  Pacer.  The  horse  was 
shipped  from  Ehode  Island  in  a  sloop,  from  which 
he  managed  to  jump  overboard,  swim  ashore,  and  re- 
turn home.  He  was,  however,  again  placed  on  board 
ship,  and  arrived  in  New  York  after  a  fourteen-days* 
passage,  naturally  much  reduced  in  flesh  and  spirits. 
From  New  York  he  was  sent  to  Philadelphia  by  post 
— that  is,  ridden  by  the  post-rider.  The  horse  cost 
£32,  and  his  freight  cost  fifty  shillings.  He  was  said 
to  be  "no  beauty  though  so  high  priced,  save  in 
his  legs."  "  He  always  plays  and  acts  and  never  will 
stand  still,  he  will  take  a  glass  of  wine,  beer  or  cyder, 


188  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

and  probably  would  drink  a  dram  on  a  cold  morning." 
The  last  extraordinary  accomplishment  doubtless 
showed  contamination  from  the  bad  human  com- 
pany around  him,  while  the  swimming  feat  evinced 
his  direct  descent  from  the  Andalusian  swimmer. 

Dr.  McSparran,  rector  of  the  Narragansett  church 
from  1721  to  1759,  wrote  a  little  book  called 
"  America  Dissected,"  in  which  he  speaks  thus  of  the 
Narragansett  Pacers : 

"  The  produce  of  this  country  is  principally  butter, 
cheese,  fat  cattle,  wool  and  fine  horses  that  are  exported 
to  all  parts  of  English  America.  They  are  remarkable 
for  fleetness  and  swift  pacing  and  I  have  seen  some  of 
them  pace  a  mile  in  a  little  more  than  two  minutes  and  a 
good  deal  less  than  three  minutes.  I  have  often  upon 
the  larger  pacing  horses  rode  fifty,  nay  sixty  miles  a  day 
even  in  New  England  where  the  roads  are  rough,  stony 
and  uneven.'* 

In  the  realm  of  fiction  we  find  testimony  to  the 
qualities  of  the  Narragansett  Pacers.  Cooper,  in  the 
"  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  represents  his  heroines  as 
mounted  on  these  horses,  and  explains  their  charac- 
teristics in  a  footnote,  and  also  in  the  dialogue  of 
the  story.  He  says  that  they  were  commonly  sorrel- 
colored,  and  that  horses  of  other  breeds  were  trained 
to  their  gait.  It  is  true  that  horses  were  trained  to 
pace.  Eev.  Mr.  Thatcher  wrote  in  1690  of  teaching 
a  mare  to  amble  by  cross-spanning,  and  again  by 
trammelling.     Logs  of  wood  were  placed  across  a 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     189 

road  at  certain  intervals  to  induce  a  pacing  gait.  As 
late  as  the  year  1770  men  in  Ipswich  followed  the 
profession  of  pace-trainer ;  but  I  doubt  whether  any 
other  breed  could  ever  acquire  the  peculiar  gait  of  the 
Narragansetts,  of  which  Isaac  Hazard  thus  wrote: 
"My  father  described  the  motion  of  this  horse  as 
differing  from  others  in  that  its  backbone  moved 
through  the  air  in  a  straight  line  without  inclining 
the  rider  from  side  to  side,  as  does  a  rocker  or  pacer 
of  the  present  day."  That  motion  could  scarcely  be 
taught. 

Many  traits  joined  to  make  the  Narragansett  Pacers 
so  eagerly  sought  for.  Not  only  was  their  ease  of 
motion  an  absolute  necessity,  but  sureness  of  foot 
was  also  indispensable ;  this  quality  they  also  pos- 
sessed. They  were  also  tough  and  enduring,  and 
could  travel  long  distances.  The  stories  told  of  them 
seem  incredible.  It  was  said  that  they  could  travel 
one  hundred  miles  in  a  day,  over  rough  roads,  with- 
out tiring  the  rider  or  injury  to  themselves,  provided 
they  were  properly  cared  for  at  the  end  of  the  jour- 
ney. 

There  was  not  only  in  America  a  steady  demand 
for  these  horses,  but  in  the  West  Indies,  as  Hull  pre- 
dicted, they  found  a  ready  market.  One  farmer  sent 
annually  a  hundred  pacers  to  Cuba,  and  agents  were 
sent  to  Narragansett  from  Cuba  with  orders  to  buy 
pacers,  especially  full-blooded  mares,  at  any  prices. 
Agents  from  Virginia  also  purchased  pacers  for  Vir- 
ginian horse-raisers.  The  newspapers  of  the  latter 
part  of  the   eighteenth  century — especially  of  the 


190  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Connecticut  press  —  abound  in  advertisements  of 
horses  of  tlie  "  true  Narragansett  breed,"  yet  it  is 
said  that  in  the  year  1800  but  one  full-blooded  Nar- 
ragansett Pacer  was  known  to  be  living.  In  the  War 
of  1812  the  British  man-of-war  Orpheus  cruised  the 
waters  of  Narragansett  Bay,  and  her  captain  endeav- 
ored through  agents  to  obtain  a  Narragansett  Pacer 
as  a  gift  for  his  wife,  but  in  vain — not  a  horse  of  the 
true  breed  could  be  found. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  reckless  exportation  to  the 
West  Indies  caused  this  extermination,  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  so  shrewd  a  race  as  were  the 
Narragansett  planters  ever  would  have  committed 
such  a  killing  of  a  goose  of  golden  eggs.  The  decay 
of  the  race  was  the  action  of  a  simple  law — cause  and 
effect.  The  conditions  which  rendered  the  pacer  so 
desirable  did  not  exist  after  the  Eevolution.  Roads 
were  improved,  carriages  became  common,  the  saddle 
less  used,  and  the  American  trotter  was  evolved,  who 
was  a  better  carriage  horse,  and  a  more  useful  one,  as 
he  could  be  employed  for  both  light  and  heavy  work, 
while  heavy  draughting  stiffened  the  joints  of  the 
pacer,  and  destroyed  the  very  qualities  for  which  he 
was  most  valued.  Thus,  being  no  longer  needed,  the 
Narragansett  Pacer  ceased  to  exist. 

There  died  in  Wickford,  R.  I.,  a  few  years  ago, 
a  Narragansett  Pacer  that  was  nearly  full  blooded. 
She  was  a  villainously  ugly  animal  of  faded,  sunburnt 
sorrel  color.  She  was  so  abnormally  broad-backed 
and  broad-bodied  that  a  male  rider  who  sat  astride 
her  was  forced  to  stick  his  legs  out  at  a  most  awkward 


TRAVEL,  TAVER1S-,   AND  TURNPIKE  191 

and  ridiculous  angle.  Tliat  broad  back  carried, 
however,  most  comfortably  a  side-saddle  or  a  pillion. 
Being  extremely  short-legged  this  treasured  relic  was 
unprecedentedly  slow,  and  altogether  I  found  the 
Narragansett  Pacer,  though  an  object  of  great  pride 
and  even  veneration  to  her  owner,  not  all  my  fancy 
had  painted  her. 

From  the  earliest  days  when  horses  were  imported, 
women  rode  on  pillions  behind  the  men.  Lechford 
in  his  note-book  refers  to  a  "womans  pillion"  lost 
on  the  Hopewell.  A  pillion  was  a  cushion  strapped 
on  behind  a  man's  saddle,  and  from  it  sometimes 
hung  a  small  platform  or  double  stirrup  on  which  a 
woman  rider  could  rest  her  feet.  One  horse  was 
sometimes  made  also  to  carry  two  men  riding  astride. 
Horseflesh  was  also  economized  by  the  ride-and-tie 
system  r  two  persons  would  start  on  horseback,  ride 
a  mile  or  two,  dismount,  tie  the  animal  by  the  road- 
side, leaving  him  for  another  couple  (who  had  started 
afoot)  to  mount,  ride  on  past  the  first  couple,  and 
dismount  and  tie  in  their  turn. 

Coaches  were  not  a  wholly  popular  means  of  con- 
veyance in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
even  among  Englishmen  on  English  roads,  and  they 
would  have  been  wholly  useless  in  New  England. 
John  Winthrop  had  one  in  1685.  Sir  Edmund  and 
Lady  Andros  rode  in  a  coach  in  Boston  in  1687,  and 
there  were  then  a  few  other  carriages  in  town.  Theii<' 
purchase  and  use  were  deplored  and  discouraged  by 
Puritan  authorities,  as  were  other  luxurious  fashions. 
Outside  of  the  town  wheeled  vehicles  were  of  little  use 


192  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

as  they  had  to  be  lashed  clumsily  in  two  canoes  and 
laboriously  ferried  across  the  rivers,  while  the  horses 
were  similarly  transferred  to  the  opposite  shore,  or 
allowed  to  swim  over.  The  early  carriages  were  ca- 
lashes and  chariots.  Henry  Sharp  of  Salem  had  a 
calash  in  1701.  William  Cutler's  "  coUash  with  ye 
furniture"  was  worth  XIO  in  1723.  Chairs — two- 
wheeled  gigs  without  a  top — and  chaises,  a  vehicle 
with  similar  body  and  a  top,  were  early  forms  of 
carriages.  The  sulky  had  in  early  days,  as  now,  seat- 
ing room  but  for  one  person.  All  these  were  hung 
on  thorough  braces  instead  of  springs. 

In  an  account  of  the  funeral  of  Lieutenant  Governor 
Tailor,  in  1732,  it  is  mentioned  that  a  "  great  number 
of  the  gentry  attended  in  their  coaches  and  chaises ; " 
but  even  by  that  date  coaches  were  of  little  avail  for 
long  journeys.  The  anxious  letters  of  Waits  till  Win- 
throp  to  his  son  in  1717,  at  the  latter's  proposal  of 
bringing  a  coach  overland  from  Boston  to  New  Lon- 
don, show  the  obstacles  of  travel.  He  warns  that  there 
are  no  bridges  in  Narragansett ;  he  urges  him  to  bring 
a  mounted  servant  with  an  axe  to  "  cut  bows  in  the 
way,"  "  to  bring  a  good  pilate  that  knows  the  cart 
ways,"  to  be  sure  to  keep  the  coachman  sober,  to  have 
axle  and  hubs  prepared  for  rough  usage — and  in  every 
way  discourages  so  rash  an  endeavor. 

Though  I  have  seen  a  New  England  inventory  of 
the  year  1690  in  which  a  "  sley "  appears,  I  do  not 
find  that  they  were  frequently  used  until  the  second 
or  third  decade  of  the  succeeding  century,  though  a 
few  Bostonians  had  them  in  the  year  1700.     They 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     193 

were  largely  used  by  the  Dutch  in  New  York,  and 
Connecticut  folk  occasionally  followed  Dutch  fash- 
ions. 

When  sedan-chairs  were  so  fashionable  and  plenti- 
ful in  England,  they  were  sure  to  be  used  to  some 
extent  in  New  England  towns.  Governor  Winthrop 
had  a  very  elegant  Spanish  sedan-chair,  which  was 
given  him  in  1646  by  Captain  Cromwell,  who  captured 
it  from  a  Spanish  galleon.  This  fine  chair  was  worth 
£50  and  was  an  intended  gift  of  the  Viceroy  of  Mex- 
ico to  his  sister.  When  Parson  Oxenbridge  was 
striken  with  apoplexy  in  the  pulpit  of  the  First  Church 
in  Boston,  he  was  "  carried  home  in  a  Cedan."  On 
August  3,  1687,  Judge  Sewall  wrote  in  his  diary: 
"  Capt.  Gerrish  is  carried  in  a  Sedan  to  the  Wharf  and 
so  takes  boat  for  Salem."  A^ain  he  writes  on  May 
31,  1715  :  "  The  Gov'r  comes  first  to  Town,  was  car- 
ried from  Mr.  Dudleys  to  the  Town-House  in  Cous. 
Dumers  Sedan ;  but  'twas  too  tall  for  the  Stairs,  so 
was  fain  to  be  taken  out  near  the  top  of  them."  The 
Governor  had  had  a  bad  attack  of  gout. 

On  September  11,  1706,  Sewall  writes:  "Five  In- 
dians carried  Mr.  Bromfield  in  a  chair."  And  though 
I  have  never  seen  the  sale  of  a  sedan  mentioned,  sev- 
eral times  I  have  fancied  that  the  reference  to  the  sale 
of  a  chair  meant  a  sedan-chair.  In  the  memoirs  of 
Eliza  Quincey  she  speaks  of  riding  in  a  sedan,  and  of 
seeing  Dr.  Franklin  in  one  in  1789. 

At  a  surprisingly  early  date,  when  we  consider  the 
limited  opportunities  for  travel,  the  colonial  author- 
ities licensed  taverns  or  ordinaries,  and  also  made 
13 


194  OLD  KEW  ENGLAND 

strict  laws  governing  them.  The  landlords  could 
not  sell  sack  or  strong  water  ;  nor  permit  games  to  be 
played  in  their  precincts ;  nor  allow  dancing  or  sing- 
ing ;  nor  could  tobacco  be  used  within  their  walls ; 
nor  could  they  sell  cakes  or  buns  indiscriminately. 
Samuel  Cole,  the  Boston  comfit-maker,  received  his 
license  in  1634,  though  one  can  hardly  understand,  with 
such  manifold  rules  of  narrow  limit,  how  he  could 
wish  it.  Previously  other  freemen  had  obtained  per- 
mission "  to  draw  wine  and  beer  "  to  sell  at  retail  to 
their  neighbors  and  to  travellers.  In  New  Haven  the 
tavern-keeper  had  been  given  twenty  acres  of  land  in 
1645,  in  which  travellers'  horses  could  be  pastured. 
In  Hartford  and  other  river  towns  the  establishment 
of  taverns  was  compulsory.  The  ordinaries  quickly 
multiplied  in  number  and  increased  in  pretension. 
In  Boston,  in  1651,  the  King's  Arms  and  its  furniture 
were  held  to  be  worth  £600.  Board  was  cheap 
enough.  In  1634  the  Court  set  the  price  of  a  single 
meal  at  sixpence,  and  an  ale  quart  of  beer  at  a  penny. 
At  the  Ship  Tavern  a  man  had  "  fire  and  bed,  dyet, 
wyne  and  beere  betweene  meals  "  for  three  shillings 
a  day.  The  wine  was  limited  to  "  a  cupp  each  man 
at  dynner  &  supp  &  no  more."  Following  the  Eng- 
lish fashion  of  Shakespeare's  time,  the  inn  chambers 
were  each  named :  The  Exchange  Chamber,  Eose  and 
Sun  Chamber,  Star  Chamber,  Court  Chamber,  Jeru- 
salem Chamber,  etc.  The  names  of  the  inns  also 
followed  English  nomenclature :  The  Bunch  of  Grapes, 
Dog  &  Pot,  Turk's  Head,  Green  Dragon,  Blue  Anchor, 
King's  Head,  etc.     The  Good  Woman  bore  on  its 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     195 

painted  sign  the  figure  of  a  headless  woman.     The 
Ship  in  Distress  had  these  lines : 

"  With  sorrows  I  am  compassed  ronnd, 
Pray  lend  a  hand — my  shii^'s  aground." 

Another  Boston  tavern  had  this  rhyme : 

"  This  is  the  bird  that  never  flew, 
This  is  the  tree  that  never  gi'ew, 
This  is  the  ship  that  never  sails, 
This  is  the  can  that  never  fails.** 

The  Sun  Tavern  bore  these  words : 

**  The  Best  Ale  and  Beer  nnder  the  Sun." 

This  tavern  was  removed  to  Moon  Street,  and  was 
kept  by  Mrs.  Milk.  Her  neighbors'  names  were  Wa- 
ters, Beer,  and  Legg.  The  Salutation  Inn,  with  its 
sign-boafd  bearing  the  picture  of  two  men  shaking 
hands,  was  commonly  known  as  the  Two  Palaverers. 

I  know  no  more  attractive  picture  of  olden-time 
hospitality,  nothing  better  "under  the  notion  of  a 
tavern,"  than  the  old  Palaverer  tavern  at  Medford. 
On  either  side  of  its  front  door  grew  a  great  tree,  and 
in  the  spreading  branches  of  each  tree  was  built  a 
platform  or  balcony.  The  two  were  connected  by  a 
hanging  bridge  or  scaffolding,  and  also  connected  by 
a  similar  foot-bridge  with  the  tavern  itself.  In  these 
leafy  tree-arbors,  through  the  sunny  summer  months, 
from  dawn  till  twilight,  whilom  travellers  rested  and 
drank  their  drams,  or,  perchance,  their  cups  of  tea, 


196  OLD  KEW  ENGLAND 

and  watched  the  arrival  and  departure  of  coaches 
and  horsemen  at  "  mine  inn." 

John  Adams  wrote  frequently  of  the  inns  of  the 
time.  He  said  of  the  Ipswich  innkeeper  in  1771: 
"  Landlord  and  Landlady  are  some  of  the  grandest 
people  alive.  Landlady  is  the  great  granddaughter 
of  Governor  Endicott,  and  has  all  the  notions  of 
greatest  family.  As  to  Landlord,  he  is  as  happy,  and 
as  big,  as  proud,  as  conceited  as  any  nobleman  in 
England,  always  calm  and  good-natured  and  lazy." 

Of  the  Enfield  landlord  he  wrote:  "Gated  and 
drank  tea  at  Peases — a  smart  house  and  landlord 
truly ;  well  dressed  with  his  ruffles  &c.  and  upon  in- 
quiry I  found  he  was  the  great  man  of  the  town,  their 
representative  as  well  as  tavern-keeper."  In  a  paper 
which  he  wrote  upon  licensed  houses,  Adams  stated 
that  "retailers  and  tavemers  are  generally,  in  the 
country,  assessors,  selectmen,  representatives,  or  es- 
quires." 

Members  of  our  best  and  most  respected  families 
throughout  New  England  were  innkeepers.  The  land- 
lord was  frequently  a  local  magistrate,  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  or  a  sheriff.  Notices  of  town-meetings,  of  elec- 
tions, of  new  laws  and  ordinances  of  administration 
were  posted  at  the  tavern,  just  as  legal  notices  are 
printed  in  the  newspapers  nowadays.  Bills  of  sales, 
of  auctions,  records  of  transfers  were  naturally  posted 
therein;  the  taverns  were  the  original  business  ex- 
changes. No  wonder  all  the  men  in  the  township 
flocked  to  the  tavern — they  had  to  to  know  anything 
of  town  affairs,  to  say  nothing  of  local  scandals.   Dis- 


TRAVEL,   TAVERN,   AND  TURNPIKE  197 

tances  were  given  in  almanacs  of  the  day,  not  from 
town  to  town,  but  from  tavern  to  tavern. 

Of  the  good  quality  of  New  England  inns  many 
travellers  testify.  Lafayette  wrote  to  his  wife  in 
1777 :  "  Host  and  hostess  sit  at  the  table  with  you 
and  do  the  honors  of  a  comfortable  meal,  and  on 
going  away  you  pay  your  fare  without  higgling."  Dr. 
Dwight  said  the  best  old-fashioned  New  England 
inns  were  superior  to  any  of  the  modern  ones. 
Brissot  said :  "  You  meet  with  neatness,  dignity  and 
decency,  the  chambers  neat,  the  beds  good,  the  sheets 
clean,  supper  passable,  cyder  tea  punch  and  all  for 
foui-teen  pence  a  head."  Alackaday!  the  good  old 
times. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  landlord  came  the  stage- 
driver.  He  was  so  popular  and  such  a  kindly  fellow 
that  he  had  to  be  prohibited  by  law  from  carrying 
any  parcels  or  letters  for  persons  along  the  route,  else 
he  were  overburdened  with  troublesome  and  hinder- 
ing business,  detrimental  to  the  postal  and  carriage 
income  of  the  government.  Ho  was  so  importuned 
to  drink  at  each  stopping-place  that  he  might  have 
lain  drunk  the  whole  year  round.  He  was  of  so  much 
consequence  and  so  looked  up  to,  that  little  Jack  Men- 
dum,  who  drove  the  Salem  mail-coach,  hardly  exagger- 
ated his  position  when  he  roared  out  angrily  to  a  hun- 
gry passenger  who  urged  him  to  drive  faster :  "  While 
I  drive  this  coach  I  am  the  whole  United  States 
of  America."  Stage-driving  was  an  hereditary  gift ; 
it  went  in  families.  Four  Potters,  three  Ackermans, 
three  Annables  drove  in  Salem.    Patch  and  Peach, 


198  "  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Tozzer  and  Blumpy,  Canney  and  Camp,  were  well- 
known  stage-driving  names. 

The  stage-agent  also,  that  obsolete  functionary, 
was  a  man  of  much  local  consequence  and  of  many 
affairs;  he  was  established  in  many  a  tavern  as  a 
necessary  and  almost  immovable  piece  of  bar-room 
furniture. 

To  show  the  importance  of  tavern,  tavern-keeper, 
stage-agent,  and  stage-driver  in  early  Federal  days, 
let  me  give  a  single  instance.  Haverhill  was  the  great 
staging  centre  of  New  Hampshire  ;  six  or  eight  lines 
of  coaches  left  there  each  day.  There  were  lines  direct 
to  Boston,  New  York,  and  Stanstead,  Canada.  Of 
course  there  was  a  vast  bustle  and  commotion  on  the 
arrival  and  departure  of  each  coach,  and  a  goodly 
number  of  passengers  were  deposited  at  the  tavern 
that  formed  the  coach  office — sometimes  one  hundred 
and  fifty  a  day.  It  can  readily  be  seen  what  a  news 
centre  such  a  tavern  must  have  been,  how  much 
knowledge  of  the  world  must  have  been  gathered 
by  its  occupants.  It  must  be  remembered  that  our 
universal  modern  source  of  information,  the  news- 
paper, did  not  then  exist ;  there  were  a  few  journals, 
of  course,  of  scant  circulation,  but  of  what  we  now 
deem  news  they  contained  nothing.  Information 
of  current  events  came  through  hearing  and  talking, 
not  through  reading.  Hence  it  came  to  be  that  an 
innkeeper  was  not  only  influential  in  local  affairs, 
but  was  universally  known  as  the  best-informed  man 
in  the  place;  reporters,  so  to  speak,  rendered  their 
accounts  to  him;  items  of  foreign  and  local  news 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,   AND  TURNPIKE  199 

were  sent  to  liim ;  he  was  in  himseK  an  entire  As- 
sociated Press. 

The  earliest  roads  for  travel  throughout  New  Eng- 
land followed  the  Indian  trails  or  paths,  and  were 
but  two  or  three  feet  wide.  The  Old  Plymouth  or 
Coast  Road,  of  much  importance  because  connect- 
ing Boston  and  Plymouth,  the  capitals  of  separate 
colonies,  was  provided  for  by  action  of  the  General 
Court  in  1639.  It  ran  through  old  Braintree.  The 
Old  Connecticut  Road  or  Path  started  from  Cam- 
bridge, ran  to  Marlborough,  thence  to  Grafton,  Ox- 
ford, and  Woodstock,  and  on  to  Springfield  and 
Albany.  It  was  intersected  at  Woodstock  by  the 
Providence  Path,  which  ran  through  Narragansett 
and  Providence  plantations,  and  also  by  the  Nip- 
muck  Path  which  came  from  Norwich. 

The  New  Connecticut  Road  ran  as  did  the  old  road, 
from  Boston  to  Albany.  It  was  known  at  a  later  date 
as  the  Post  Road.  From  Boston  it  ran  to  Marl- 
borough, thence  to  Worcester,  thence  to  Brookfield, 
and  so  on  to  Springfield  and  Albany. 

The  famous  Bay  Path,  laid  out  in  1673,  left  the  Old 
Connecticut  Path  at  Happy  Hollow,  now  Wayland, 
and  ran  through  Marlborough  to  Worcester,  Oxford, 
Charlton,  and  Brookfield,  when  it  separated  in  two 
paths,  one — the  Hadley  Path — running  to  Ware, 
Belchertown,  and  Hadley,  and  the  other  returning  to 
the  Old  Connecticut  Path  and  on  to  Springfield. 

An  inexplicable  charm  still  attaches  itself  to  these 
old  Indian  paths,  a  delight  in  attempting  to  trace 
their  unused  and  overgrown  roadways,  as  they  leave 


200  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

tlie  main  road  in  devious  twists  and  turns  till  they 
again  join  its  beaten  way.  And  the  halo  of  early 
romance  and  adventure  surrounds  them.  Holland  felt 
the  charm  when  he  wrote  thus  of  the  Bay  Path : 

"  It  was  marked  by  trees  a  portion  of  the  distance  and 
by  slight  clearings  of  brush  and  thicket  for  the  remainder. 
No  stream  was  bridged,  no  hill  graded,  and  no  marsh 
drained.  The  path  led  through  woods  which  bore  the 
mark  of  centuries,  over  barren  hills  that  had  been  licked 
by  the  Indian  hounds  of  fire,  and  along  the  banks  of 
streams  that  the  seine  had  never  dragged.  A  powerful 
interest  was  attached  to  the  Bay  Path.  It  was  the  chan- 
nel through  which  laws  were  communicated,  through 
which  flowed  news  from  distant  friends,  and  through 
which  came  long,  loving  letters  and  messages.  That 
rough  thread  of  soil  chopped  by  the  blades  of  a  hundred 
streams  was  a  bond  that  radiated  at  each  terminus  into  a 
thousand  fibres  of  love  and  interest  and  hope  and  mem- 
ory. Every  rod  had  been  prayed  over  by  friends  on  the 
journey  and  friends  at  home." 

Hawthorne  felt  it  also  and  said  : 

"  The  forest-track  trodden  by  the  hob-nailed  shoes  of 
these  sturdy  and  ponderous  Englishmen  has  now  a  dis- 
tinctness which  it  never  could  have  acquired  from  the 
light  tread  of  a  hundred  times  as  many  moccasins.  It 
goes  onward  from  one  clearing  to  another,  here  plunging 
into  a  shadowy  strip  of  woods,  there  open  to  the  sunshine, 
but  everywhere  showing  a  decided  line  along  which  human 
interests  have  begun  to  hold  their  career.    .     .     .    And 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     201 

the  Indians  coming  from  their  distant  wigwams  to  view 
the  white  man's  settlement  marvel  at  the  deep  track  which 
he  makes,  and  perhaps  are  saddened  by  a  flitting  pre- 
sentiment that  this  heavy  tread  will  find  its  way  over  all 
the  land,  and  that  the  wild  woods,  the  wild  wolf,  and  the 
wild  Indian  will  alike  be  trampled  beneath  it." 


For  many  years  these  paths  were  travelled,  grad- 
ually widening  from  foot-paths  to  bridle -ways,  to 
cart-tracks,  to  carriage-roads,  until  they  became  the 
post-roads,  set  thick  with  cheerful  country  homes.  In 
some  portions  of  New  England  they  still  are  travelled 
and  form  the  general  thoroughfare,  but  in  many  lonely 
townships  the  old  paths  are  deserted,  and  traflic  and 
passage  over  the  post  or  county  road  is  gone  forever. 
Bushes  flourish  and  meet  gloomily  across  the  grass- 
gro^vn  track;  forest  trees  droop  heavily  over  it  in 
summer  and  fall  unheeded  across  it  in  winter.  On 
either  side  moss-grown,  winter -killed  apple-trees 
and  ancient  stunted  currant-bushes  struggle  for  life 
against  sturdy  young  pine  and  spruce  and  birch. 
Many  a  rod  of  heavy  tumble-down  stone  wall — New 
England  Stonehenges — may  be  seen,  not  as  of  old 
dividing  cleared  and  fertile  fields,  but  in  the  midst  of 
a  forest  of  trees  or  underbrush : 


Far  up  on  these  abandoned  motmtain  farms 
Now  drifting  back  to  forests  wild  again, 

The  long  gray  walls  extend  their  clasping  arms 
Pathetic  monuments  of  vanished  men." 


202  OLD.  NEW  ENGLAND 

Or  more  pathetic  monuments  still  of  hard  and  wasted 
work.  On  either  side  of  the  way,  at  too  sadly  fre- 
quent intervals,  ruined  wells  or  desolate  yawning 
cellar-holes,  with  tumbling  chimneys  standing  like 
Druid  ruins,  show  that  fair  New  England  homes  once 
there  were  found.  Flaming  orange  tiger-lilies,  most 
homely  and  cheerful  bloom  of  country  gardens,  have 
spread  from  the  deserted  dooryards,  across  the  un- 
trodden foot-paths,  in  weedy  thickets  a-down  the  hill, 
and  shed  their  rank  odor  unheeded  on  the  air. 

Some  of  the  old  provincial  mile-stones,  however, 
remain,  and  put  us  closely  in  touch  with  the  past.  In 
the  southern  part  of  New  London  County,  and  at 
Stratford,  Conn.,  on  the  old  post-road — the  King's 
Highway — between  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  there 
are  mossgrown  stones  that  w^ere  set  under  the  super- 
vision of  Benjamin  Franklin  when  he  was  colonial 
Postmaster-General.  After  that  highway  was  laid 
out,  the  placing  and  setting  of  the  mile-stones  were  en- 
trusted to  Franklin,  and  he  transacted  the  business, 
as  he  did  everything  else,  in  a  thoroughly  original 
way.  He  drove  over  the  road  in  a  comfortable  chaise, 
followed  by  a  gang  of  men  and  heavy  teams  loaded 
with  the  mile-stones.  He  attached  to  his  chaise  a 
machine  which  registered  by  the  revolution  of  the 
chaise-wheels  the  number  of  miles  travelled,  and  he 
had  the  mile-stones  set  by  that  record,  and  marked 
with  the  distance  to  the  nearest  large  town.  Thus 
the  Stratford  stone  says  :  "  20  Mis  to  N.  H."— New 
Haven. 

By  provincial   enactment  in   Governor  Hutchin- 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,    AND  TURNPIKE  203 

son's  time,  mile-stones  were  set  on  all  the  post-roads 
throughout  Massachusetts.  Some  of  these  stones  are 
still  standing.  There  is  one  in  the  middle  of  the  city 
of  Worcester,  on  Lincoln  Street — the  "  New  Connecti- 
cut Path ; "  it  is  of  red  sandstone,  and  is  marked,  "42 
Mis  to  Boston,  50  Mis  to  Springfield,  1771." 

In  Sutton,  on  the  "  Old  Connecticut  Path,"  stands 
still  the  king  of  all  these  1771  mile-stones.  It  is  of 
red  sandstone,  is  five  feet  high,  and  nearly  three  feet 
wide.  It  is  marked,  "  48  Mis  to  Boston  1771  B.  W." 
The  letters  B.  W.  stand  for  Bartholomew  Woodbury, 
a  jovial  and  liberal  old  Sutton  tavern-keeper  who 
died  in  1775.  Wlien  the  mile-stones  were  set  out 
by  the  provincial  government,  the  place  for  this 
Sutton  stone  fell  a  few  rods  from  Landlord  Wood- 
bm-y's  house ;  but  he  obtained  permission  and  set 
up  this  handsome  stone  at  his  o^oi  expense,  be- 
side his  great  horse-block  under  his  swinging  sign  at 
his  open,  welcoming  door.  He  fancied,  perhaps,  that 
it  would  attract  the  attention,  and  thus  cause  the  halt- 
ing of  travellers.  Tavern-keeper  and  tavern  are  gone ; 
no  vestiges  even  of  cobblestone  chimneys  or  cellar 
walls  remain.  The  old  post-road  is  now  but  little 
travelled,  but  the  great  mile-stone  and  its  neighbor, 
the  worn  stepping-block,  still  stand,  lonely  monu- 
ments of  past  days  and  past  pleasures.  On  warm 
summer  nights  perhaps  the  silent  old  mile-stone 
awakes  and  sadly  tells  his  companion  of  the  gay 
coaches  that  rattled  by,  and  the  rollicking  bucks  and 
blades,  the  gallant  soldiers  that  galloped  past  him 
in  the  days  of  his  youth,  a  century  ago.     And  the 


204  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

stepping-block  may  tell  in  turn  of  tlie  good  old  days 
wlien  her  broad  sunny  face  was  pressed  by  the  feet 
of  fair  colonial  dames  who,  with  faces  hidden  in 
riding-hoods  and  masks,  stepped  lightly  from  saddle 
or  pillion  to  "  board  and  bait"  at  Bartholomew  Wood- 
bury's cheerful  inn. 

In  Eoxbury,  Mass.,  there  still  stands  at  the  comer 
of  Centre  and  "Washington  Streets  the  famous  Eox- 
bury Parting  Stone.  It  is  a  great  square  stone,  bear- 
ing on  one  face  the  words :  "  The  Parting  Stone  1744. 
P.  Dudley ; "  on  another  face  the  words :  "  Dedliam — 
Khode  Island,"  and  on  a  third  "  Cambridge — Water- 
town."  It  has  had  set  on  it  recently  an  iron  frame 
or  fixture  for  a  gas-lamp.  This  stone,  with  many 
others  in  Norfolk  County,  was  placed  by  Paul  Dud- 
ley at  his  own  expense  in  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. It  has  seen  the  separation  or  "  parting "  of 
many  a  brave  company  that  had  ridden  out  to  it  from 
Boston.  Many  a  distinguished  traveller  has  passed 
it  and  glanced  at  its  carved  words.  Lord  Percy's  sol- 
diers took  counsel  of  it  one  hot  April  morning  to  find 
the  road  to  Lexington. 

Governor  Belcher  set  out  a  row  of  mile-stones  from 
Boston  Town  House  to  his  home  in  Milton.  Some 
of  them  are  still  standing,  the  seventh  and  eighth  in 
Milton,  one  marked  "  8  miles  to  B.  Town  House.  The 
Lower  Way,  1734."  The  ninth  and  twelfth  stand  as 
historical  landmarks  in  Quincy,  on  the  old  Plymouth 
Eoad,  and  bear  the  dates  1720  and  1727. 

In  Wenham  another  mile-stone  near  the  graveyard 
bears  the  date  1710,  shows  the  distance  to  Ipswich 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     205 

and  Boston,  and  gives  these  words  of  timely  warning : 
"  I  know  that  Thou  wilt  Bring  me  to  Death  and  to  the 
house  appointed  for  all  Living." 

A  marked  improvement  in  facilities  for  travel  came 
in  turnpike  days.  These  well  laid  out  and  well 
kept  roads  fairly  changed  the  face  of  the  country. 
They  sometimes  shortened  by  half  the  distance  to  be 
travelled  between  two  towns.  Stock  companies  were 
formed  to  build  bridges  and  grade  these  turnpikes, 
and  the  stock  formed  a  good  investment  and  was  also 
vastly  used  in  speculation.  The  story  of  the  turn- 
pike is  as  interesting  as  thUt  of  the  Indian  path,  but 
cannot  be  told  at  length  here.  They,  too,  have  had 
their  day ;  in  some  counties  the  turnpike  is  as  desert- 
ed as  the  path  and  seems  equally  ancient. 

New  England  roads  and  turnpikes  have  seen  many 
a  gay  sight,  for  the  custom  of  speeding  the  parting 
guest  "  agate  wards  "  for  some  miles,  with  an  accom- 
panying escort  on  foot  or  on  horseback,  to  some  ford 
or  natural  turning-point  or  bourn,  was  a  universal 
mark  of  interest  and  affection,  and  of  courtesy  as 
well.  Judge  Sewall  records,  on  one  occasion,  with 
much  indignation,  that  "  not  one  soul  rode  with  us  to 
the  ferry."  Ere  the  days  of  turnpikes,  the  old  Indian 
paths  witnessed  many  a  sad  and  pathetic  parting  in 
the  wilderness,  such  as  was  recorded  in  simple  lan- 
guage in  Parson  Thatcher's  diary  in  1680,  when  he 
left  Barnstable  to  go  to  a  new  parish  ; 

*'  A  great  company  of  horsemen  7  &  50  hoi'se  &  12  of 
them  double,  went  with  us  to  Sandwich  &  there  got  me 


206  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  go  to  prayer  with  them,  and  I  think  none  of  them 
parted  with  me  with  dry  eyes." 

This  is  indeed  a  strong  picture  for  the  brush  of  a 
painter,  the  golden  September  light,  nowhere  more 
radiantly  beautiful  than  on 

**  the  narrowing  Cape 
That  stretdies  its  shrunk  arm  out  to  all  the  winds, 
And  the  relentless  smiting  of  the  waves," 

and  the  sad-faced  band  in  Puritan  garb,  armed  and 
mounted,  gathered  around  their  departing  leader  in 
reverent  prayer. 

Perhaps  the  turnpike  saw  no  more  characteristic 
scene  than  the  winter  ride  to  market.  Though  sum- 
mer and  fall  were  the  New  England  farmer's  time 
of  increase,  winter  was  his  time  of  trade  and  his  time 
of  recreation  as  well.  When  wintry  blasts  grew  chill, 
and  snow  and  ice  covered  deep  the  desolate  fields  and 
country  roads,  then  he  prepared  with  zest  and  with 
delight  for  his  gelid  time  of  outing,  his  Arctic  red- 
letter  day,  his  greatest  S9cial  pleasure  of  the  entire 
year.  THie  friendly  word  was  circulated  by  a  kind  of 
estafet  fronj  farm  to  farm,  was  carried  by  neighbor  or 
passing  ..traveller,  or  wafe  discu^sM  and^lan^d  and 
agreed  up(m  p^  th,|g .v^Kifto-bouse,  or  at  the  tavern 
'cUimney-sioe  on  Sunday  during  the  nooning,  that  on 
a  certain  date — unless  there  set  in  the  tantalizing  and 
swamping  January  thaw,  a  thaw  which  might  be  push- 
ing and  unseasonable  enough  to  rush  in  in  December 
and  quite  as  often  hung  off  and  dawdled  into  February 


TRAVEL,  TAVERl^,    AND  TURNPIKE  207 

— that  on  the  appointed  date,  at  break  of  day,  the  an- 
nual ride  to  market  would  begin.  Often  fifty  or  sixty 
neighbors  would  respond  to  the  call,  would  start  to- 
gether on  the  road.  For  farmers  in  western  Vermont 
and  Massachusetts  the  market  town  was  Troy  or  other 
Hudson  valley  towns.  In  Maine,  from  Bath  and  Hal- 
lowell  and  neighboring  towns,  the  winter  procession 
rode  to  Portland.  In  central  Massachusetts  some 
drove  to  Northampton,  Springfield,  or  Hartford ;  but 
the  greatest  number  of  farmers  and  the  largest  amount 
of  farm  produce  went  to  the  towns  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts coast,  to  Salem,  to  Newburyport,  and,  above 
all,  to  Boston. 

The  two-horse  pung  or  the  single-horse  pod,  shod 
with  steel  shoes  an  inch  thick,  was  closely  packed 
with  the  accumulated  farm  wealth — whole  pigs,  per- 
haps a  deer  or  two,  firkins  of  butter,  casks  of  cheese, 
four  cheeses  in  each  cask,  bags  of  beans,  pease  or 
com,  skins  of  mink,  fox,  and  fisher-cat  that  the  boys 
had  trapped,  birch  brooms  that  the  boys  had  made, 
yam  that  their  sisters  had  spun,  and  stockings  and 
mittens  that  they  had  knitted — in  short,  anything 
that  a  New  England  farm  could  produce  that  would 
sell  to  any  profit  in  a  New  England  town.  So  closely 
was  the  sleigh  packed,  in  fact,  that  the  driver  could 
not  be  seated.  The  sturdy  and  hardy  farmer  stood 
on  a  little  semicircular  step  in  the  rear  of  the  sleigh, 
his  body  protected  by  the  high  sleigh  back  against 
the  sharp  icy  blasts.  At  times  he  ran  alongside  or 
behind  his  vehicle  to  keep  his  blood  in  brisk  cir- 
culation. 


208  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Though  every  inch  of  the  sleigh  was  packed  to 
its  fullest  extent,  there  was  always  found  room  in 
some  corner  for  plenty  of  food  to  last  the  thrifty 
traveller  through  his  journey  ;  often  enough  to  liber- 
ally supply  him  even  on  his  return  trip — cold  roasted 
spare  ribs  of  pork,  doughnuts,  loaves  of  "rye  an* 
Injun"  bread,  and  invariably  a  bountiful  mass  of 
frozen  bean  porridge.  This  latter  was  made  and 
frozen  in  a  tub,  and  when  space  was  hard  to  find 
in  the  crowded  vehicle,  the  solid  mass  was  furnished 
with  a  loop  of  twine  by  which  to  hang  it  to  the  side 
of  the  pung.  A  small  hatchet  with  which  to  chop  off  a 
chunk  of  porridge  formed  the  accompaniment  of  this 
unalluring  Arctic  provender.  Oats  and  hay  to  feed 
his  horses  did  the  farmer  also  carry. 

There  were  plenty  of  taverns  in  which  he  could 
obtain  food  if  he  needed  it,  in  which,  indeed,  he  did 
obtain  liquid  sustenance  to  warm  his  bones  and  stir 
his  tongue,  and  make  palatable  the  half-thawed  por- 
ridge which  he  ate  in  front  of  the  cheerful  tavern 
fire.  But  it  was  the  invariable  custom,  no  matter 
what  the  wealth  of  the  farmer,  to  carry  a  supply  of 
food  for  the  journey.  This  kind  of  itinerant  picnic 
was  called  "  tuck-a-nuck  " — ^a  word  of  Indian  origin, 
or  **mitchin,"  while  the  box  or  hamper  or  bucket 
that  held  the  provisions  was  called  a  "  mitchin-box." 
I  can  fancy  that  no  thrifty  or  loving  housewife  al- 
lowed the  man  of  her  household  to  go  to  market  with 
too  meanly  filled  a  mitchin-box,  but  took  an  honest 
pride  in  sending  him  off  with  a  full  stock  of  rich 
doughnuts,  well-baked  bread,  well-filled  pies,  and  at 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     209 

least  well-cooked  porridge,  which  he  could  devour 
without  shame  before  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors. 

The  traveller  did  not  carry  his  meals  from  home 
because  the  tavern  fare  was  expensive ;  at  the  inn 
where  he  paid  ten  cents  a  night  for  his  lodging,  he 
was  uniformly  charged  but  twelve  and  a  half  cents 
for  a  "  cold  bite,"  and  but  twenty-five  cents  for  a  reg- 
ular meal ;  but  it  was  not  the  fashion  to  purchase 
meals  at  the  tavern ;  the  host  made  his  profits  from 
the  liquor  he  sold  and  from  the  sleeping-room  he 
gave.  Sometimes  the  latter  was  simple  enough.  A 
great  fire  was  built  in  the  fireplace  of  either  front 
room — the  bar-room  and  parlor — and  round  it,  in  a 
semicircle,  feet  to  the  fire  and  heads  on  their  rolled- 
up  bufi'alo  robes,  slept  the  tired  travellers.  A  few  syb- 
aritic or  rheumatic  tillers  of  the  soil  paid  for  half  a 
bed  in  one  of  the  double-bedded  rooms  which  all  tav- 
erns then  contained,  and  got  a  full  bed's  worth,  in 
deep  hollows  and  high  billows  of  live-geese  feathers, 
warm  homespun  blankets,  and  patchwork  quilts. 

It  was  certainly  a  gay  winter's  scene  as  sleigh  after 
sleigh  dashed  into  the  tavern  barn  or  shed,  and 
the  stiffened  driver,  after  "  putting  up  "  his  steed, 
walked  quickly  to  the  bar-room,  where  sat  the  host 
behind  his  cage-like  counter,  where  ranged  the  in- 
spiring barrels  of  old  Medford  or  Jamaica  rum  and 
hard  cider,  and 

"Where  dozed  a  fire  of  beechen  logs  that  bred 
Strange  fancies  in  its  embers  golden-red, 
And  nursed  the  loggerhead,  whose  hissing  dip, 
Timed  by  nice  instinct,  creamed  the  bowl  of  flip.*' 
14 


210  OLD   NEW    ENGLAND 

Many  a  rough  joke  was  laughed  at,  many  a  story 
told  ere  the  tired  circle  slept  around  the  fire ;  but  four 
o'clock  saw  them  all  bestirring,  making  a  fresh  start 
on  their  city- ward  journey. 

In  town  the  traveller  was  busy  enough ;  he  not  only 
had  his  farm  products  to  sell,  but  since  he  sometimes 
got  the  enormous  sum  of  fifty  dollars  for  his  sleigh 
load,  and  it  was  estimated  that  two  dollars  was  a  lib- 
eral allowance  for  a  week's  travelling  expenses,  he  had 
much  to  spend  and  many  purchases  to  make — spices 
and  raisins  for  the  home  table,  fish-hooks  and  powder 
and  shot,  pewter  plates,  or  a  few  pieces  of  English 
crockery,  a  calico  go^vn  or  two,  a  shawl,  or  a  scarf,  or 
a  beaver  hat ;  and  thus  brought  to  dreary  New  Eng- 
land farms  their  sole  taste  of  town  life  in  winter. 

For  many  years  travel,  especially  to  New  York  and 
other  seaport  towns,  was  largely  by  water,  on  sloop 
or  pink  or  snow ;  and  many  stories  of  the  discomforts 
of  such  trips  have  conie  down  to  us. 

The  first  passenger  steamboat  which  ran  between 
New  York  and  Providence  made  its  trial  trip  in  1822. 
The  boats  made  the  passage  from  town  to  town  in 
twenty-three  hours,  which  was  monstrous  fast  time. 
On  one  of  the  first  trips  the  boat  lay  by  near  Point 
Judith  to  repair  a  slight  damage  to  machinery,  and 
all  the  simple  country-folk  who  came  do^vn  to  the 
shore  expecting  to  find  a  wreck,  were  amazed  to  see 
the  boat — apparently  burning  up — go  quickly  sliding 
away  without  sails  over  the  water  until  out  of  sight. 
Many  whispered  that  the  devil  had  a  hand  in  it,  and 
perhaps  was  on  board  in  person.     The  new  means  of 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE     211 

conveyance  proved  at  once  to  be  the  favored  one  for 
all  genteel  persons  wishing  to  travel  between  Boston 
and  New  York.  The  forty-mile  journey  between  Bos- 
ton and  Providence  was  made  in  fine  stage-coaches, 
which  were  always  crowded.  Often  eighteen  or 
twenty  full  coach-loads  were  carried  each  way  each 
day.  The  editor  of  the  Providence  Gazette  wrote  at 
that  time :  "  We  were  rattled  from  Providence  to 
Boston  in  four  hours  and  fifty  minutes — if  any  one 
wants  to  go  faster  he  may  send  to  Kentucky  and 
charter  a  streak  of  lightning ! " 

The  fare  on  these  coaches  was  three  dollars  for  the 
trip  between  Providence  and  Boston.  This  exorbi- 
tant sum  was  a  sore  annoyance  to  all  thrifty  men, 
and  indignantly  did  they  rail  and  protest  against  it. 
At  last  a  union  was  formed,  and  a  line  of  rival  coaches 
was  established,  on  which  the  fare  was  to  be  two  dol- 
lars and  a  half  a  trip.  This  caused  great  dismay  to 
the  regular  coach  company,  who  at  once  reduced  their 
fare  to  two  dollars.  The  rival  line,  not  to  be  outdone, 
announced  their  reduction  to  a  dollar  and  a  half.  The 
regulars  then  widely  advertised  that  their  fare  would 
thenceforth  be  only  one  dollar.  The  rivals  then  sold 
seats  for  the  trip  for  fifty  cents  apiece ;  and  in  de- 
spair, after  jealously  watching  for  weeks  the  crowded 
coaches  of  the  new  line,  the  conquered  old  line  mourn- 
fully announced  that  they  would  make  trips  every 
day  with  their  vehicle  filled  with  the  first  applicants 
who  chanced  to  be  on  time  at  the  starting-place,  and 
that  these  lucky  dogs  would  be  carried  for  nothing. 

The  new  stage-coaches  were  now  in  their  turn  de- 


212  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

serted,  and  the  proprietors  pondered  for  a  week  try- 
ing to  invent  some  way  to  still  further  cut  down  the 
entirely  vanished  rates.  They  at  last  placarded  the 
taverns  with  announcements  that  they  would  not  only 
carry  their  patrons  free  of  expense,  but  would  give 
each  traveller  on  their  coaches  a  good  dinner  at  the 
end  of  his  journey.  The  old  coach-line  was  rich  and 
at  once  counter-advertised  a  free  dinner  and  a  good 
bottle  of  wine  too,  to  its  patrons — and  there,  for  a 
time,  the  fierce  controversy  came  to  a  standstill,  both 
lines  having  crowded  trips  each  day. 

Mr.  Shaffer,  who  was  a  fashionable  teacher  of 
dancing  and  deportment  in  Boston,  and  a  well-known 
"  man  about  town,"  a  jolly  good  fellow,  got  upon  the 
Providence  coach  one  Monday  morning  in  Boston, 
had  a  gay  ride  to  Providence  and  a  good  dinner  and 
bottle  of  wine  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  all  at  the 
expense  of  the  coach  company.  On  Tuesday  he  rode 
more  gayly  still  back  to  Boston,  had  his  dinner  and 
his  wine,  and  was  up  on  Wednesday  morning  to 
mount  the  Providence  coach  for  the  third  ride  and 
dinner  and  bottle.  He  returned  to  Boston  on  Thurs- 
day in  the  same  manner.  On  Friday  the  fame  of  his 
cheap  fun  was  thoroughly  noised  all  over  Boston,  and 
he  collected  a  crowd  of  gay  young  sparks  who  much 
enjoyed  their  frolicking  ride  and  the  fine  Providence 
dinners  and  wine.  All  returned  in  high  spirits  with 
Shaffer  to  Boston  on  Saturday  to  meet  the  sad,  sad 
news  that  the  rival  coach  lines  had  made  a  compro- 
mise and  had  both  signed  a  contract  to  carry  passen- 
gers thereafter  for  two  dollars  a  trip. 


TRAVEL,  TAVERN,  AND  TURNPIKE  213 

Upon  Tremont  Street,  near  Winter  Street,  in  Bos- 
ton, there  stood  at  that  time  in  a  garden  a  fine  old 
house  which  was  kept  as  a  restaurant,  and  was  a 
pleasant  summer  lounging-place  for  all  gay  cits.  One 
day  a  very  portly,  aldermanic  man  presented  himself 
at  the  entrance  of  the  restaurant  and  asked  the  price 
of  a  dinner.  Shaffer,  who  was  present,  immediately 
assumed  all  the  obsequious  airs  of  a  waiter,  and  call- 
ing for  a  tape-measure,  proceeded  to  measure  the  dis- 
tance around  the  protuberant  waist  of  the  astonished 
and  insulted  inquirer,  who  could  hardly  believe  his 
sense  of  hearing  when  the  impudent  Shaffer  very 
politely  answered,  "Price  of  dinner,  sir!  —  about 
four  dollars,  sir !  —  for  that  size,  sir !  "  Such  were 
the  practical  jokes  of  stage  and  tavern  life  in  olden 
days. 


IX 
HOLIDAYS  AND  FESTIVALS 

The  first  century  of  colonial  life  saw  few  set  times 
and  days  for  pleasures.  The  holy  days  of  the  Eng- 
lish Church  were  as  a  stench  to  the  Puritan  nostrils, 
and  their  public  celebration  was  at  once  rigidly  for- 
bidden by  the  laws  of  New  England.  New  holidays 
were  not  quickly  evolved,  and  the  sober  gatherings 
for  matters  of  Church  and  State  for  a  time  took  their 
place.  The  hatred  of  "  wanton  Bacchanallian  Chiist- 
masses "  spent  throughout  England,  as  Cotton  said, 
in  "revelling,  dicing,  carding,  masking,  mumming, 
consumed  in  compotations,  in  interludes,  in  excess  of 
wine,  in  mad  mirth,"  was  the  natural  reaction  of  in- 
telligent and  thoughtful  minds  against  the  excesses 
of  a  festival  which  had  ceased  to  be  a  Christian  holi- 
day, but  was  dominated  by  a  lord  of  misrule  who 
did  not  hesitate  to  invade  the  churches  in  time  of  ser- 
vice, in  his  noisy  revels  and  sports.  English  Church- 
men long  ago  revolted  also  against  such  Christmas 
observance. 

Of  the  first  Pilgrim  Christmas  we  know  but  little, 
save  that  it  was  spent,  as  was  many  a  later  one,  in 
work.     Bradford  said  :  "  Ye  25  day  begane  to  erect 


HOLIDAYS  AND   FESTIVALS  215 

y®  first  house  for  comone  use  to  receive  them  and 
their  goods."  On  the  following  Christmas  the  gov- 
ernor records  with  grim  humor  a  **  passage  rather  of 
mirth  than  of  waight."  Some  new  company  excused 
themselves  from  work  on  that  day,  saying  it  went 
against  their  consciences.  The  governor  answered 
that  he  would  spare  them  until  they  were  better  in- 
formed. But  returning  at  mid-day  and  finding  them 
playing  pitch-the-bar  and  stool-ball  in  the  streets,  he 
told  them  that  it  was  against  his  conscience  that  they 
should  play  and  others  work,  and  so  made  them  cease 
their  games. 

By  1659  the  Puritans  had  grown  to  hate  Christmas 
more  and  more ;  it  was,  to  use  Shakespeare's  words, 
"  the  bug  that  feared  them  all."  The  very  name 
smacked  to  them  of  incense,  stole,  and  monkish  jar- 
gon ;  any  person  who  observed  it  as  a  holiday  by  for- 
bearing of  labor,  feasting,  or  any  other  way  was  to 
pay  five  shillings  fine,  so  desirous  were  they  to 
*'  beate  down  every  sprout  of  Episcopacie."  Judge 
Sewall  watched  jealously  the  feeling  of  the  people 
with  regard  to  Christmas,  and  noted  with  pleasure 
on  each  succeeding  year  the  continuance  of  common 
traflic  throughout  the  day.  Such  entries  as  this 
show  his  attitude  :  "  Dec.  25,  1685.  Carts  come  to 
town  and  shops  open  as  usual.  Some  somehow  ob- 
serve the  day,  but  are  vexed  I  believe  that  the  Body 
of  people  profane  it,  and  blessed  be  God  no  authority 
yet  to  compel  them  to  keep  it."  When  the  Church 
of  England  established  Christmas  services  in  Boston 
a  few  years  later,  we  find  the  Judge  waging  hopeless 


216  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

war  against  Governor  Belcher  over  it,  and  hear  him 
praising  his  son  for  not  going  with  other  boy  friends 
to  hear  the  novel  and  attractive  services.  He  says  : 
"  I  dehort  mine  from  Christmas  keeping  and  charge 
them  to  forbear." 

Christmas  could  not  be  regarded  till  this  century 
as  a  New  England  holiday,  though  in  certain  locali- 
ties, such  as  old  Narragansett — an  opulent  community 
which  was  settled  by  Episcopalians — two  weeks  of 
Christmas  visiting  and  feasting  were  entered  into  with 
zest  by  both  planters  and  slaves  for  many  years  pre- 
vious to  the  Eevolution. 

Thanksgiving,  commonly  regarded  as  being  from 
its  earliest  beginning  a  distinctive  New  England 
festival,  and  an  equally  characteristic  Puritan  holi- 
day, was  originally  neither. 

The  first  New  England  Thanksgiving  was  not  ob- 
served by  either  Plymouth  Pilgrim  or  Boston  Puritan. 
"  Gyving  God  thanks  "  for  safe  arrival  and  many  other 
liberal  blessings  was  first  heard  on  New  England 
shores  from  the  lips  of  the  Popham  colonists  at  Mon- 
hegan,  in  the  Thanksgiving  service  of  the  Church  of 
England. 

Days  set  apart  for  thanksgiving  were  known  in 
Europe  before  the  Eeformation,  and  were  in  frequent 
use  by  Protestants  afterward,  especially  in  the 
Church  of  England,  where  they  were  a  fixed  custom 
long  before  they  were  in  New  England.  One  wonders 
that  the  Puritans,  hating  so  fiercely  the  customs  and 
set  days  and  holy  days  of  the  Established  Church, 
should  so  quickly  have   appointed  a  Thanksgiving 


HOLIDAYS   AND   FESTIVALS  217 

Day.  But  the  first  New  England  Thanksgiving  was 
not  a  day  of  religious  observance,  it  was  a  day  of 
recreation.  Those  who  fancy  all  Puritans,  and  es- 
pecially all  Pilgrims,  to  have  been  sour,  morose,  and 
gloomy  men  should  read  this  account  of  the  first 
Thanksgiving  week  (not  day)  in  Plymouth.  It  was 
written  on  December  11,  1621,  by  Edward  Winslow 
to  a  friend  in  England : 

"  Our  harvest  being  gotten  in  ourgov  ernor  sent  foar 
men  on  fowling  that  so  we  might  after  a  special  manner 
rejoice  together  after  we  had  gathered  the  fruits  of  our 
labors.  They  four  killed  as  much  fowl  as  with  a  little 
help  beside  served  the  company  about  a  week.  At  which 
times  among  other  recreations  we  exercised  our  arms, 
many  of  the  Indians  coming  amongst  us,  and  among  the 
rest  their  greatest  king  Massasoyt  with  some  ninety  men, 
whom  for  three  days  we  entertained  and  feasted,  and 
they  went  out  and  killed  five  deer  which  they  brought 
and  bestow'd  on  our  governor,  and  upon  the  captains  and 
others." 

As  Governor  Bradford  specified  that  during  that 
autumn  "beside  waterfoule  ther  was  great  store  of 
wild  turkies,"  we  can  have  the  satisfaction  of  feeling 
sure  that  at  that  first  Pilgrim  Thanksgiving  our  fore- 
fathers and  foremothers  had  turkeys. 

Thus  fared  the  Pilgrims  better  at  their  Thanksgiv- 
ing than  did  their  English  brothers,  for  turkeys  were 
far  from  plentiful  in  England  at  that  date. 

Though  there  were  but  fifty-five  English  to  eat  the 
Pilgrim  Thanksgiving  feast,  there  were  "partakers 


218  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

in  plenty,"  and  the  ninety  sociable  Indian  visitors  did 
not  come  empty-handed,  but  joined  fraternally  in  pro- 
vision for  the  feast,  and  probably  also  in  the  games. 

These  recreations  were,  without  doubt,  competi- 
tions in  running,  leaping,  jumping,  and  perhaps 
stool-ball,  a  popular  game  played  by  both  sexes,  in 
which  a  ball  was  driven  from  stool  to  stool  or  wicket 
to  wicket. 

During  that  chilly  November  week  in  Plymouth, 
Priscilla  Mullins  and  John  Alden  may  have  "  rec- 
reated" themselves  with  this  ancient  form  of  cro- 
quet— if  any  recreation  were  possible  for  the  four 
women  of  the  colony,  who,  with  the  help  of  one  ser- 
vant and  a  few  young  girls  or  maidekins,  had  to  pre- 
pare and  cook  food  for  three  days  for  one  hundred 
and  twenty  hungry  men,  ninety-one  of  them  being 
Indians,  with  an  unbounded  capacity  for  gluttonous 
gorging  unsurpassed  by  any  other  race.  Doubtless 
the  deer,  and  possibly  the  great  turkeys,  were  roasted 
in  the  open  air.  The  picture  of  that  Thanksgiving 
Day,  the  block-house  with  its  few  cannon,  the  Pilgrim 
men  in  buff  breeches,  red  waistcoats,  and  green  or  sad- 
colored  mandillions  ;  the  great  company  of  Indians, 
gay  in  holiday  paint  and  feathers  and  furs  ;  the  few 
sad,  overworked,  homesick  women,  in  worn  and  sim- 
ple gowns,  with  plain  coifs  and  kerchiefs,  and  the 
pathetic  handful  of  little  children,  forms  a  keen  con- 
trast to  the  prosperous,  cheerful  Thanksgivings  of  a 
century  later. 

There  is  no  record  of  any  special  religious  service 
during  this  week  of  feasting. 


HOLIDAYS  AND   FESTIVALS  219 

The  Pilgrims  had  good  courage,  stanch  faith,  to 
thus  celebrate  and  give  thanks,  for  they  apparently 
had  but  little  cause  to  rejoice.  They  had  been  lost 
in  the  woods,  where  they  had  wandered  surbated,  and 
had  been  terrified  by  the  roar  of  "  Lyons,"  and  had 
met  wolves  that  "  sat  on  thier  tayles  and  grinned  "  at 
them ;  they  had  been  half  frozen  in  their  poorly  built 
houses;  had  been  famished,  or  sickened  with  un- 
wonted and  unpalatable  food  ;  their  common  house 
had  burned  down,  half  their  company  was  dead — they 
had  borne  sore  sorrows,  and  equal  trials  were  to  come. 
They  were  in  dire  distress  for  the  next  two  years.  In 
the  spring  of  1623  a  drought  scorched  the  corn  and 
stunted  the  beans,  and  in  July  a  fast  day  of  nine  hours 
of  prayer  was  followed  by  a  rain  that  revived  their 
"withered  corn  and  their  drooping  affections."  In 
testimony  of  their  gratitude  for  the  rain,  which 
would  not  have  been  vouchsafed  for  private  prayer, 
and  thinking  they  would  "  show  great  ingratitude  if 
they  smothered  up  the  same,"  the  second  Pilgrim 
Thanksgiving  was  ordered  and  observed. 

In  1630,  on  February  22d,  the  first  public  thanks- 
giving was  held  in  Boston  by  the  Bay  Colony,  in 
gratitude  for  the  safe  arrival  of  food-bearing  and 
friend-bringing  ships.  On  November  4,  1631,  Win- 
throp  wrote  again  :  "  We  kept  thanksgiving  day  in 
Boston."  From  that  time  till  1684  there  were  at  least 
twenty-two  public  thanksgiving  days  appointed  in 
Massachusetts — about  one  in  two  years ;  but  it  was 
not  a  regular  biennial  festival.  In  1675,  a  time  of 
deep  gloom  through  the  many  and  widely  separated 


220  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

attacks  from  the  fierce  savages,  there  was  no  public 
thanksgiving  celebrated  in  either  Massachusetts  or 
Connecticut.  It  is  difficult  to  state  when  the  feast 
became  a  fixed  annual  observance  in  New  England. 
In  the  year  1742  were  two  Thanksgiving  Days. 

Ehode  Islanders  paid  little  heed  in  early  days  to 
Thanksgiving — at  any  rate,  to  days  set  by  the  Massa- 
chusetts authorities.  Governor  Andros  savagely  pros- 
ecuted more  than  one  Rhode  Islander  who  calmly 
worked  all  day  long  on  the  day  appointed  for  giv- 
ing thanks.  In  Boston,  William  Yeazie  was  set  in 
the  pillory  in  the  market-place  for  ploughing  on  the 
Thanksgiving  Day  of  June  18,  1696.  He  said  his 
king  had  granted  liberty  of  conscience,  and  that  the 
reigning  king,  William,  was  not  his  ruler ;  that  King 
James  was  his  royal  prince,  and  since  he  did  not  be- 
lieve in  setting  apart  days  for  thanksgiving  he  should 
not  observe  them. 

Connecticut  people,  though  just  as  pious  and  as 
prosperous  as  the  Bay  colonists,  do  not  appear  to 
have  been  as  grateful,  and  had  considerable  trouble  at 
times  to  "  pick  vppon  a  day  "  for  thanksgiving  ;  and 
the  festival  was  not  regularly  observed  there  till 
1716. 

Thanksgiving  was  not  always  appointed  in  early 
days  for  the  same  token  of  God's  beneficence.  Days* 
of  thanks  were  set  in  gratitude  for  and  observance  of 
great  political  and  military  events,  for  victories  over 
the  Indians  or  in  the  Palatinate,  for  the  accession  of 
kings,  for  the  prospect  of  royal  heirs  to  the  throne, 
for  the  discovery  of  conspiracy,  for  the  *' healing  of 


HOLIDAYS  AND   FESTIVALS  221 

breaches,"  the  "  dissipation  of  the  Pirates,"  the  abate- 
ment of  diseases,  for  the  safe  arrival  of  "  psons  of 
spetiall  use  and  quality,"  as  well  as  in  gratitude  for 
plentiful  harvests — that  "  God  had  not  given  them 
cleannes  of  teeth  and  wante  of  bread." 

The  early  Thanksgivings  were  not  always  set  upon 
Thursday.  It  is  said  that  that  day  was  chosen  on  ac- 
count of  its  reflected  glory  as  lecture  day.  Judge  Sew- 
all  told  the  governor  and  his  council,  in  1697,  tha  the 
"desir'd  the  same  day  of  the  week  might  be  for 
Thanksgiving  and  Fasts,"  and  that  "  Boston  and  Ips- 
witch  Lectures  led  us  to  Thorsday."  The  feast  of 
thanks  was  for  many  years  appointed  with  equal  fre- 
quency upon  "Tusday  com  seuen-night,"  or  "vppon 
Wensday  com  fort-nit."  Nor  was  any  special  season 
of  the  year  chosen  :  in  1716  it  was  appointed  in  Au- 
gust ;  in  1713,  in  January ;  in  1718,  in  December ;  in 
1719,  in  October.  The  frequent  appointments  in 
gratitude  for  bountiful  harvests  finally  made  the  au- 
tumn the  customary  time. 

The  God  of  the  Puritans  was  a  jealous  God,  and 
many  fasts  were  appointed  to  avert  his  wrath,  as  shown 
in  blasted  wheat,  moulded  beans,  wormy  pease,  and 
mildewed  corn  ;  in  drought  and  grasshoppers ;  in  Ind- 
ian invasions ;  in  caterpillars  and  other  woes  of  New 
England ;  in  children  dying  by  the  chincough ;  in  the 
"  excessive  raigns  from  the  botles  of  Heaven  " — all 
these  evils  being  sent  for  the  crying  sins  of  wig- wear- 
ing, sheltering  Quakers,  not  paying  the  ministers,  etc. 
A  fast  and  a  feast  kept  close  company  in  Puritan 
calendars.     A  fast  frequently  preceded  Thanksgiving 


222  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

Day,  and  was  sometimes  appointed  for  the  day  suc- 
ceeding the  feast — a  clever  plan  which  had  its  good 
hygienic  points.  Days  of  private  as  well  as  of  public 
fast  and  thanksgiving  were  also  observed  by  individ- 
uals. Judge  Sewall  took  the  greatest  satisfaction  in 
his  fastings,  and  carefully  outlined  his  plan  of  prayer 
throughout  the  fast  day,  which  he  spent  in  his  cham- 
ber— a  plan  which  included  and  specified  ministers, 
rulers  and  magistrates,  his  family,  and  every  person 
whom  he  said  "  had  a  smell  of  relation  "  to  him ;  and 
also  every  nation  and  people  in  the  known  world.  He 
does  not  note  Thanksgiving  Day  as  a  holiday  of  any 
importance. 

Though  in  the  mind  of  the  Puritan,  Christmas 
smelled  to  heaven  of  idolatry,  when  his  own  festi- 
val. Thanksgiving,  became  annual,  it  assumed  many 
of  the  features  of  the  old  English  Christmas  ;  it  was 
simply  a  day  of  family  reunion  in  November  instead 
of  December,  on  which  Puritans  ate  turkey  and  Ind- 
ian pudding  and  pump  kin -pie,  instead  of  "  supersti- 
tious meats  "  such  as  a  baron  of  beef,  boar's  head,  and 
plum-pudding. 

Many  funny  stories  are  told  of  the  early  Thanks- 
giving Days,  such  as  the  town  of  Colchester  calmly 
ignoring  the  governor's  appointed  day  and  observing 
their  own  festival  a  week  later  in  order  to  allow  time 
for  the  arrival,  by  sloop  from  New  York,  of  a  hogs- 
head of  molasses  for  pies.  Another  is  recounted  of 
a  farmer  losing  his  cask  of  Thanksgiving  molasses 
out  of  his  cart  as  he  reached  the  top  of  a  steep  hill, 
and  of  its  rolling  swiftly  down  till  split  in  twain 


HOLIDAYS   AND  FESTIVALS  223 

by  its  fall.     His  helpless  discomfiture  and  his  wife's 
acidity  of  temper  and  diet  are  comically  told. 

There  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  a  broadside  announcing  a  thanks- 
giving for  victory  in  King  Philip's  War ;  and  during 
the  follomng  year,  1677,  the  first  regular  Thanksgiv- 
ing proclamation  was  printed. 

But  Thanksgiving  Day  was  not  the  chief  New 
England  holiday.  Ward,  writing  in  1699,  does  not 
name  it,  saying  of  New  Englanders :  "  Election, 
Commencement  and  Training  Days  are  their  only 
Holy  Days." 

It  was  natural  in  New  England,  a  state  planted  by 
men  of  exceptional  intelligence,  that  all  should  think 
as  one  minister  said,  "  If  the  college  die,  the  church 
cannot  long  live ; "  and  in  the  Commencement  Day 
of  their  colleges  they  found  matter  of  deep  interest, 
of  pridfe,  of  recreation.  Judge  Sewall  always  notes 
the  day  at  Harvard,  its  exercises,  its  dinner,  its  plen- 
tiful wine,  and  the  Commencement  cake,  which  he 
carried  to  his  friends.  The  meagre  entries  in  the 
diaries  and  almanacs  of  many  an  old  New  England 
minister  show  that  Commencement  Day  was  one  of 
their  proudest  holidays.  After  1730,  Commencement 
Day  was  usually  set  for  Friday,  in  order  that  there 
might  be,  as  President  Wadsworth  said  in  his  diary, 
"  less  remaining  time  in  the  week  to  be  spent  in 
frolicking." 

Training  Day  may  be  called  the  first  New  England 
holiday,  though  Hawthorne  thought  the  day  of  too 
serious  importance  in  early  warlike  times  to  be  classed 


224  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

under  the  head  of  festivals.  At  the  first  Pilgrim 
Thanksgiving  they  "  exercised  their  arms,"  and  for 
some  years  they  had  six  trainings  a  year  ;  no  wonder 
they  were  said  to  be  "  diligent  in  traynings."  The 
all-powerful  Church  Militant  held  sway  even  over 
these  gatherings  of  New  England  warriors.  The 
military  reviews  and  exercises  were  made  properly 
religious  by  an  opening  exercise  of  prayer  and  psalm- 
singing,  the  latter  sometimes  at  such  inordinate 
length  as  to  provoke  criticism  and  remarks  from 
the  rank  and  file,  remonstrance  which  was  at  once 
pleasantly  rebuked  by  pious  Judge  Sewall.  Kelig- 
ious  notices  were  also  given  before  the  company  broke 
line.  A  noble  dinner  somewhat  redeemed  the  sobriety 
of  the  opening  exercises,  a  dinner  given  in  Boston  to 
gentlemen  and  gentlewomen  in  tents  on  the  Common ; 
and  the  frequent  firing  of  guns  and  cannon  further 
enlivened  the  day. 

Boston  mustered  a  very  fair  military  force  at  train- 
ings, even  in  early  days.  Winthrop  writes  that  at 
the  May  training  in  1639  one  thousand  men  exercised, 
and  in  the  autumn  twelve  hundred  bore  arms,  and  not 
an  oath  or  quarrel  was  heard  and  no  drunkenness 
seen.  The  training  field  was  Boston  Common.  At 
these  trainings  prizes  were  frequently  offered  for  the 
best  marksmanship ;  in  Connecticut,  a  silk  handker- 
chief or  some  such  trinket.  Judge  Sewall  offered  a 
silver  cup,  and  again  a  silver-headed  pike ;  since  he 
was  an  uncommonly  poor  shot  himself,  his  gener- 
osity shows  out  all  the  more  plainly.  With  barbaric 
openness  of  cruel  intent,  a  figure  stuffed  to  represent 


HOLIDAYS  AND  FESTIVALS  225 

a  human  form  was  often  the  target,  and  it  was  a 
matter  of  grave  decision  whether  a  shot  in  the  head 
or  bowels  were  the  fatal  one.  Sometimes  the  day  was 
enlivened  by  a  form  of  amusement  ever  beloved 
of  the  colonists — by  public  punishments.  For  in- 
stance, at  the  training  day  at  Kittery,  Me.,  in  1690, 
two  men  "  road  the  woodin  Horse  for  dangerous  and 
churtonous  carig  and  mallplying  of  oaths." 

The  training  days  of  colony  times  developed  into 
Muster  Days,  the  crowning  pinnacle  of  gayety,  dissi- 
pation, and  noise  in  a  country  boy's  life  in  New  Eng- 
land for  over  a  century. 

We  owe  much  to  these  trainings  and  these  trials  of 
marksmanship.  In  conjunction  with  the  universal 
skill  in  woodcraft  and  in  hunting,  they  made  our 
ancestors  more  than  a  match  for  the  Indian  and  the 
Frenchman,  and  in  Revolutionary  times  gave  them 
their  ascendency  over  the  English. 

Election  Day  was  naturally  a  time  of  much  excite- 
ment to  New  Englanders  in  olden  times,  as  now- 
adays. In  fact,  the  entire  week  partook  of  the  flavor 
of  a  holiday.  This  did  not  please  the  ministers. 
Urian  Oakes  wrote  sadly  that  Election  Day  had  be- 
come a  time  "  to  meet,  to  smoke,  carouse  and  swag- 
ger and  dishonor  God  with  the  greater  bravery." 
Various  local  customs  obtained.  "  'Lection  cake," 
a  sort  of  rusk  rich  with  fruit  and  wine,  was  made 
in  many  localities ;  indeed,  is  still  made  in  some  fam- 
ilies that  I  know ;  and  sometimes  "  'lection  beer  "^ 
was  brewed.  In  early  May  the  herb  gatherei-s  (many 
of  them  old  squaws)  brought  to  town  various  barks 
15 


226  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

and  roots  for  this  beer,  and  they  also  vended  it  on 
the  streets  during  Election  week.  An  Election  ser- 
mon was  also  preached. 

Boston  had  two  Election  Days.  "  Nigger  'Lection" 
was  so  called  in  distinction  from  Artillery  Election. 
On  the  former  anniversary  day  the  election  of  the 
governor  was  formally  announced,  and  the  black 
population  was  allowed  to  throng  the  Common,  to 
buy  gingerbread  and  drink  beer  like  their  white  bet- 
ters. On  the  second  holiday  the  Ancient  and  Hon- 
orable Artillery  had  a  formal  parade,  and  chose  its 
new  officers,  who  received  with  much  ceremony,  out- 
of-doors,  their  new  commissions  from  the  new  gov- 
ernor. "Woe,  then,  to  the  black  face  that  dared  be  seen 
on  that  grave  and  martial  occasion !  In  1817  a  negro 
boy  named  William  Eead,  enraged  at  being  refused 
the  high  privileges  and  pleasures  of  Artillery  Day, 
blew  up  in  Boston  Harbor  a  ship  called  the  Canton 
Packet.  For  years  it  was  a  standing  taunt  of  white 
boys  in  Boston  to  negroes : 

"Who  blew  up  the  ship? 
Nigger,  why  for? 
'Cause  he  couldn't  go  to  'lection 
An'  shake  paw-paw." 

Paw-paw  was  a  gambling  game  which  was  played 
on  the  Common  with  four  sea-shells  of  the  Cyproea 
Moneta, 

The  14th  of  July  was  observed  by  Boston  negroes 
for  many  years  to  commemorate  the  introduction 
of  measures  to  abolish  the  slave  trade.     It  was  deri- 


HOLIDAYS   AND  FESTIVALS  227 

sively  called  Bobalition  Day,  and  the  orderly  conven- 
tion of  black  men  was  greeted  with  a  fusillade  of  rotten 
fruit  and  eggs  and  much  jesting  abuse.  It  was  at 
one  of  these  Bobalition-Day  celebrations  that  this 
complimentary  toast  was  seriously  given  and  recorded 
in  honor  of  the  newly  elected  governor  :  "  Governor 
Brooks — May  the  mantelpiece  of  Caleb  Strong  fall  on 
the  hed  of  his  distinguished  Predecessor." 

In  other  localities,  notably  on  the  Massachusetts 
coast,  in  Connecticut,  and  in  Narragansett,  the  term 
"  Nigger  'Lection  "  was  applied  to  the  election  of  a 
black  governor,  who  held  his  sway  over  the  black 
population.  Wherever  there  was  a  large  number  of 
negroes  the  black  governor  was  a  man  of  much  dig- 
nity and  importance,  and  his  election  was  a  scene  of 
much  gayety  and  considerable  feasting,  which  the 
governor's  master  had  to  pay  for.  As  he  had  much 
control  over  his  black  constituents,  it  is  plain  that 
the  black  governor  might  be  made  useful  in  many 
petty  ways  to  his  white  neighbors.  Occasionally  the 
"  Nigger  'Lection  "  had  a  deep  political  signification 
and  influence.  "Scaeva,"  in  his  "Hartford  in  the 
Olden  Times,"  and  Hinman,  in  the  "  American  Ee vo- 
lution," give  detailed  and  interesting  accounts  of 
"  Nigger  'Lection." 

A  few  rather  sickly  and  benumbed  attempts  were 
made  in  bleak  New  England  to  celebrate  in  old  Eng- 
lish fashion  the  first  of  May.  A  May-pole  was  erected 
in  Charlestown  in  1687,  and  was  promptly  cut  down. 
The  most  unbounded  observance  of  the  day  was  held 
at  Merry  Mount  (now  the  town  of  Quincy)  in  1628  by 


228  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

roystering  Morton  and  his  gay  crew.  Bradford  says : 
"  They  set  up  a  May-pole,  drinking  and  dancing  aboute 
it  many  days  togeather,  inviting  the  Indian  women  for 
their  consorts,  dancing  and  frisking  togeather  like  so 
many  fairies  or  furies  rather."  This  May-pole  was  a 
stately  pine-tree  eighty  feet  high,  with  a  pair  of 
buck's  horns  nailed  at  the  top,  and  with  "  sundry 
rimes  and  verses  affixed."  Stem  Endicott  rode  down 
ere  long  to  investigate  matters,  and  at  once  cut  the 
"  idoU  Maypole  "  down,  and  told  the  junketers  that 
he  hoped  to  hear  of  their  "  better  walking,  else  they 
would  find  their  merry  mount  but  a  woful  mount." 

To  eat  pancakes  on  Shrove  Tuesday  was  held  by 
the  Puritans  to  be  a  heathenish  vanity  ;  and  yet,  ap- 
parently with  the  purpose  of  annoying  good  Boston 
folk,  some  attempts  were  made  to  observe  the  day. 
One  year  a  young  man  went  through  the  town  "  car- 
rying a  cock  on  his  back  with  a  bell  in  's  hand."  Sev- 
eral of  his  fellows  followed  him  blindfolded,  and, 
under  pretence  of  striking  him  with  heavy  cart- whips, 
managed  to  do  considerable  havoc  in  the  surrounding 
crowd.  We  can  well  imagine  how  odious  this  horse- 
play was  to  the  Puritans,  aggravated  by  the  fact  that 
it  was  done  to  note  a  holy  day.  On  Shrove  Tuesday, 
in  1685,  there  was  "  great  disorder  in  town  by  reason 
of  Cock-skailing."  This  was  the  barbarous  game  of 
cock-steling,  or  cock-throwing,  or  cock-squoiling — a 
game  as  old  as  Chaucer's  time,  a  universal  pastime  on 
Shrove  Tuesday  in  England,  where  scholars  also  had 
cock-fights  in  the  school-rooms. 

The  observance,  or  even  notice,  of  the  first  day  of 


HOLIDAYS   AND   FESTIVALS  329 

the  year  as  a  "  gaudy-day  " — of  New- Year's  tides  in 
any  way — was  thought  by  Urian  Oakes  to  savor 
strongly  of  superstitious  reverence  for  the  heathen 
god  Janus ;  the  Pilgrims  made  no  note  of  their  first 
New- Year's  Day  in  the  New  World,  save  by  this  very 
prosaic  record,  "We  went  to  work  betimes."  Yet 
Judge  Sewall,  as  rigid  and  stem  a  Puritan  as  any  of 
the  earliest  days,  records  with  some  pride  his  being 
greeted  with  a  levet,  or  blast  of  trumpets,  under  his 
window,  early  on  the  morning  of  January  1,  1697 ; 
while  he  himself  celebrated  the  opening  of  the  new 
century  with  a  very  poor  poem  of  his  own  making, 
which  he  caused  to  be  cried  or  recited  throughout  the 
town  of  Boston  by  the  town  bellman. 

Guy  Fawkes'  Day,  or  "  Pope's  Day,"  was  observed 
with  much  noise  throughout  New  England  for  many 
years  by  burning  of  bonfires,  preceded  by  parades  of 
young  men  and  boys  dressed  in  fantastic  costumes 
and  carrying  "  guys  "  or  "  popes  "  of  straw.  Fires 
are  still  lighted  on  the  5th  of  November  in  New 
England  towns  by  boys,  who  know  not  what  they 
commemorate.  In  Newburyport,  Mass.,  and  Ports- 
mouth, N.  H.,  Guy  Fawkes'  Day  is  still  celebrated. 
In  Newcastle,  N.  H.,  it  is  called  "  Pork  Night."  In 
New  York  and  Brooklyn,  the  bonfires  on  the  night  of 
election,  and  the  importunate  begging  on  Thanksgiv- 
ing Day  of  ragged  fantastics,  usually  children  of 
Eoman  Catholic  parents,  are  both  direct  survivals  of 
the  ancient  celebration  of  "  Pope's  Day." 

In  Governor  Belcher's  time,  in  Massachusetts,  the 
stopping  of  pedestrians  on  the  street,  by  "loose  and 


230  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

dissolute  people,"  who  were  wont  to  levy  contribu- 
tions for  paying  for  their  bonfires,  became  so  univer- 
sally annoying  that  the  governor  made  proclamation 
against  them  in  the  newspapers.  Tudor,  in  his  "Life 
of  Otis,"  gives  an  account  of  the  observance  of  the 
day  and  its  disagreeable  features.  He  says  the  in- 
truders paraded  the  streets  with  grotesque  images, 
forcibly  entered  houses,  ringing  bells,  demanding 
money,  and  singing  rhymes  similar  to  those  sung  all 
over  England : 

"Don't  you  remember 
The  Fifth  of  November, 
The  Gunpowder  Treason  and  plot, 
I  see  no  reason 
Why  Gunpowder  Treason 
Should  ever  be  forgot. 

From  Rome  to  Rome 
The  Pope  is  come, 
Amid  ten  thousand  fears, 
"With  fiery  serpents  to  be  seen 
At  eyes,  nose,  mouth,  and  ears. 
Don't  you  hear  my  little  bell 
Go  chink,  chink,  chink, 
Please  give  me  a  little  money 
To  buy  my  Pope  some  drink." 

The  figure  of  the  Pretender  was  added  to  that  of  the 
pope  and  devil  in  1702 ;  and  on  Pope's  Day,  in  1763, 
American  politics  took  a  share.  I  read  in  a  diary  of 
that  date,  "  Pope,  Devil,  and  Stampman  were  hung 
together."  After  the  Ee volution  the  effigy  of  Bene- 
dict Arnold  was  burnt  alongside  that  of  Guy  Fawkes. 


HOLIDAYS   AND  FESTIVALS  231 

Though  we  retained  Pope's  Day  until  Federal  times, 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  struck  one  holiday 
off  our  calendar.  The  king's  birthday  was,  until 
then,  celebrated  with  a  training,  a  salute  of  cannon, 
a  dinner,  and  an  illumination. 

Other  holidays  were  evolved  by  circumstances. 
Anniversary  Day  was  a  special  festival  for  the  minis- 
ters, who  gathered  together  in  the  larger  towns  for 
spiritual  intercourse  and  the  material  refreshment  of 
a  good  dinner.  It  was  originally  held  in  Massa- 
chusetts at  the  May  meeting  of  the  General  Court. 
Forefathers'  Day,  the  anniversary  of  the  landing  at 
Plymouth,  was  celebrated  by  dinners,  prayer,  and 
praise. 

Many  other  annual  scenes  of  gayety  were  devel- 
oped by  the  various  food  harvests.  Thus  the  time 
when  the  salmon  and  shad  came  up  the  rivers  had 
been  a  great  merry-making  and  season  of  feasting  for 
the  Indian,  and  became  equally  so  for  the  white 
man.  As  years  passed  on  it  became  also  a  time  of 
much  drunkenness  and  revelry.  Men  rode  a  hun- 
dred miles  for  these  gay  holidays,  and  went  home 
with  horses  laden  down  with  fish.  Shad  were  so 
plentiful  that  they  were  thrown  away,  would  sell  for 
but  a  penny  apiece,  and  no  persons  of  social  impor- 
tance or  of  good  taste  would  eat  them  except  in  se- 
cret. Salmon,  too,  were  so  plentiful  and  so  cheap  that 
farm-servants  on  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut  stipu- 
lated that  they  should  have  salmon  for  dinner  but 
thrice  a  week,  as  the  rich  fish  soon  proved  cloying. 

In  many  localities,  in  Narragansett  in  particular. 


232  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  autumnal  com-liuskings  almost  reached  the  dig- 
nity of  holidays,  being  conducted  in  a  liberal  fashion 
and  with  unbounded  hospitality,  which  included  and 
entertained  whole  retinues  of  black  servants  from 
neighboring  farms,  as  well  as  the  planters  and  their 
families.  Apple-parings,  maple-sugar  makings,  and 
timber-rollings  were  merry  gatherings. 

In  Vermont  and  down  the  Connecticut  valley  the 
annual  sheep-shearing  was  a  lively  scene.  On  Nan- 
tucket there  took  place  annually  a  like  sheep-shear- 
ing, which,  though  a  characteristic  New  England  fes- 
tival, was  like  the  scene  in  the  "  Winter's  Tale."  The 
broad  plains  outside  the  town  were  used  as  a  common 
sheep-pasture  throughout  the  year ;  sometimes  fifteen 
or  sixteen  thousand  sheep  were  kept  thereon.  About 
two  miles  from  the  town  was  a  sheep-fold,  near  the 
margin  of  a  pond,  where  the  sheep  could  be  washed. 
It  was  built  of  four  or  &Ye  concentric  fences,  which 
thus  formed  a  sort  of  labyrinth,  into  which  and  through 
which  the  sheep  and  lambs  were  driven  at  shearing- 
time,  and  in  it  they  were  sorted  out  and  placed  in 
cotes  or  pens  erected  for  each  sheep-owner.  The  ex- 
istence of  carefully  registered  ear-marks,  with  which 
each  lamb  was  branded,  formed  a  means  of  identify- 
ing each  owner's  sheep  and  lambs.  Of  course,  this 
gathering  brought  together  all  the  sheep  drivers  and 
herders,  the  sheep  washers  and  shearers.  Vast  prep- 
arations of  food  and  drink  were  made  for  their 
entertainment,  and  tents  were  reared  for  their  occu- 
pancy, and,  of  course,  fiddlers  and  peddlers,  like  Au- 
tolycus,  flocked  there  also,  and  much  amusement  and 


HOLIDAYS   AND   FESTIVALS  233 

frolicking  accompanied  the  shearing.  Even  the  sheep, 
panting  with  their  heavy  wool  when  within  the  folds, 
and  the  shorn  and  shivering  creatures  running  around 
outside  and  bleating  for  their  old  long-wooled  com- 
panions, added  to  the  excitement  of  the  scene.  Per- 
haps the  maritime  occupation  of  the  Islanders  made 
them  enjoy  with  the  zest  of  unwontedness  this  rural 
"  shore-holiday."  But  it  exists  no  longer ;  the  island 
is  not  now  one  vast  sheep-pasture,  and  there  are  no 
longer  any  sheep-shearings. 


SPOETS  AND  DIVEESIONS 

The  Puritans  of  the  first  century  of  colonial  life — 
the  "  true  New  England  men,"  not  only  of  Winthrop 
and  Bradford's  time,  but  of  the  slowly  degenerating 
days  of  Cotton  Mather  and  Judge  Sewall — thought 
little  and  cared  little  for  any  form  of  amusement ; 

"Not  knowing  this,  that  Heaven  decrees 
Some  mirth  t'adulce  man's  miseries." 

Of  them  it  may  be  said,  as  Proissart  said  of  their 
ancestors,  "  They  took  their  pleasures  sadly — after 
their  fashion."  "  'Twas  no  time  for  New  England  to 
dance,"  said  Judge  Sewall,  sternly ;  and  indeed  it  was 
not.  The  struggle  of  planting  colonies  in  the  new, 
bleak  land  left  little  time  for  dancing. 

The  sole  mid-week  gathering,  the  only  regular  di- 
version of  early  colonial  life,  took  naturally  a  religious 
and  sombre  cast,  and  was  found  in  the  "  great  and 
Thursday  lecture."  "  Truly  the  times  were  dull  when 
these  things  happened,"  for  so  eager  were  the  colo- 
nists for  this  sober  diversion  that  it  soon  became  a 
pious  dissipation.     Cotton  said,  in  his  "  Way  of  the 


SPORTS   AND   DIVEKSIONS  235 

Churches,"  in  1639,  that  so  many  lectures  did  damage 
to  the  people  ;  and  the  largeness  of  the  assemblies 
alarmed  the  magistrates,  who  saw  persons  who  could 
ill  afford  the  time  from  their  work,  gadding  to  mid- 
day lectures  in  three  or  four  different  towns  the  same 
week.  Young  people,  not  having  acquired  that  safety- 
valve,  the  New  England  singing-school,  gladly  seized 
these  religious  meetings  as  a  pretext  and  a  means  for 
enjoyable  communion,  and  attended  in  such  numbers 
that  the  hospitality  shown  in  providing  food  for  the 
visiting  lecture-lovers  seemed  to  be  in  danger  of  be- 
coming a  burdensome  expense.  In  1633  the  magis- 
trates set  the  lecture  hour  at  one  o'clock,  that  lecture- 
goers  might  eat  their  dinner  at  noon  at  home ;  and 
they  attempted  to  have  each  minister  give  but  one 
lecture  in  two  weeks,  and  planned  that  contiguous 
towns  should  offer  but  two  temptations  a  week.  But 
the  law-makers  overstepped  the  mark,  and  the  lect- 
ure and  the  ministers  resumed  weekly  sway,  which 
they  held  for  a  century. 

Hawthorne  thus  described  the  opening  hours  of 
the  colonial  Lecture-day : 

*'  The  breakfast  hour  being  passed,  the  inhabitants  do 
not  as  usual  go  to  their  fields  or  work-shops,  but  remain 
within  doors  or  perhaps  walk  the  street  with  a  grave 
sobriety  yet  a  disengaged  and  unburdened  aspect  that 
belongs  neither  to  a  holiday  nor  the  Sabbath.  And  in- 
deed the  passing  day  is  neither,  nor  is  it  a  common  week 
day,  although  partaking  of  all  three.  It  is  the  Thursday 
Lecture ;  an  institution  which  New  England  has  long  ago 
relinquished,  and  almost   forgotten,  yet  which  it  would 


236  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

have  been  better  to  retain,  as  bearing  relations  both  to 
the  spiritual  and  ordinary  life.  The  tokens  of  its  observ- 
ance, however,  which  here  meet  our  eyes  are  of  a  rather 
questionable  cast.  It  is  in  one  sense  a  day  of  public 
shame ;  the  day  on  which  transgressors  who  have  made 
themselves  liable  to  the  minor  severities  of  the  Puritan 
law  receive  their  reward  of  ignominy.  At  this  very 
moment  the  constable  has  bound  an  idle  fellow  to  the 
whipping  -  post  and  is  giving  him  his  deserts  with  a 
cat- o-niue- tails.  Ever  since  sunrise  Daniel  Fairfield  has 
been  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  meeting-house,  with  a 
halter  about  his  neck,  which  he  is  condemned  to  wear 
visibly  throughout  his  lifetime  ;  Dorothy  Talby  is  chained 
to  a  post  at  the  corner  of  Prison  Lane  with  the  hot  sun 
blazing  on  her  matronly  face,  and  all  for  no  other  offence 
than  lifting  her  hand  against  her  husband  ;  while  through 
the  bars  of  that  great  wooden  cage,  iu  the  centre  of  the 
scene,  we  discern  either  a  human  being  or  a  wild  beast,  or 
both  in  one.  Such  are  the  profitable  sights  that  serve  the 
good  people  to  while  away  the  earlier  part  of  the  day." 

Not  only  were  criminals  punished  at  this  weekly 
gathering,  but  seditious  books  were  burned  just  after 
the  lecture,  intentions  of  marriage  were  published, 
notices  were  posted,  and  at  one  time  elections  were 
held  on  Lecture-day.  The  religious  exercises  of  the 
day  resembled  those  of  the  Sabbath  and  were  some- 
times five  hours  in  length. 

In  primitive  amusements,  the  sports  of  the  woods 
and  waters,  even  a  Puritan  could  find  occasional  and 
proper  diversion  without  entering  into  frivolous  and 
sinful  amusement.     The  wolf,  most  hated  and  most 


SPORTS   AND  DIVERSIONS  237 

destructive  of  all  the  beasts  of  the  woods,  a  "raven- 
ing runnagadore,"  was  a  proper  prey.  Wolves  were 
caught  in  pits,  in  log  pens,  in  traps ;  they  were  also 
hooked  on  mackerel  hooks  bound  in  an  ugly  bunch 
and  dipped  in  tallow,  to  which  they  were  toled  by 
dead  carcasses.  The  swamps  were  "beat  up"  in  a 
wolf -drive  or  wolf -rout,  similar  to  the  English  "  drift 
of  the  forest."  A  ring  of  men  surrounded  a  wooded 
tract  and  drew  inward  toward  the  centre,  driving 
the  wolves  before  them.  The  excitement  of  such  a 
wolf-rout,  constantly  increasing  to  the  end,  can  well 
be  imagined.  The  wolves  were  not  always  killed 
outright.  Josselyn  tells  that  the  inhuman  sport  of 
wolf-baiting  was  popular  in  New  England,  and  he 
describes  it  thus:  "A  great  mastiff  held  the  Wolf. 
.  .  .  Tying  him  to  a  stake  we  bated  him  with  small- 
er doggs  and  had  excellent  sport,  but  his  hinder 
legg  being  broken  we  soon  knocked  his  brains  out." 
Wolves  also  were  dragged  alive  at  a  horse's  tail,  a 
sport  equally  cruel  to  both  animals.  These  fierce 
and  barbarous  traits  had  been  nourished  in  England 
by  the  many  bear  and  bull  baitings,  and  even  horse- 
baitings,  and  the  colonists  but  carried  out  here  their 
English  training.  Wood  wrote  in  his  "  New  England's 
Prospects : "  "  No  ducking  ponds  can  afford  more  sport 
than  a  lame  cormorant  and  two  or  three  lusty  doggs." 
Though  we  do  not  hear  of  cock-fights,  I  doubt  not 
the  wealthy  and  sportsmanlike  Narragansett  planters, 
who  resembled  in  habits  and  occupations  the  Virgin- 
ian planters,  had  many  a  cock-fight,  as  they  had 
horse-races. 


238  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Bears  were  "  hunted  with  doggs ;  they  take  to  a 
tree  where  they  shoot  them."  Nothing  was  "more 
sportful!  than  bearbayting."  Killing  foxes  was  also 
the  "best  sport  in  depth  of  winter."  On  a  moon- 
light night  the  hunters  placed  a  sledge-load  of  cod- 
fish heads  on  the  bright  side  of  a  fence  or  wall,  and 
hiding  in  the  shadow  "  as  long  as  the  moon  shineth  " 
could  sometimes  kill  ten  of  the  wary  creatures  in  a 
night.     Squirrel  hunts  were  also  prime  sport. 

Shooting  at  a  mark  or  at  prizes  became  a  popular 
form  of  amusement.  We  read  in  the  Boston  Evening 
Post  of  January  11,  1773 :  "  This  is  to  give  Notice 
That  there  will  be  a  Bear  and  a  Number  of  Turkeys 
set  up  as  a  Mark  next  Thursday  Beforenoon  at  the 
Punch  Bowl  Tavern  in  Brookline." 

The  "  Sports  of  the  Inn  yards  "  found  few  partici- 
pants in  New  England.  In  1692  the  Andover  inn- 
keeper was  ordered  not  to  allow  the  playing  of  "  Dice, 
Cards,  Tables,  Quoits,  Loggits,  Bowles,  Ninepins  or 
any  other  Unlawful  Game  in  his  house  yard  Garden 
or  Backside  after  Saturday  P.M."  Henry  Cabot 
Lodge  says  the  shovelboard  of  Shakespeare's  time 
was  almost  the  only  game  not  expressly  prohibited. 
A  Puritan  minister,  Kev.  Peter  Thatcher,  of  Milton, 
bought  in  1679  a  "pack  of  ninepins  and  bowle,"  for 
which  he  paid  five  shillings  and  sixpence,  and  en- 
joyed playing  with  them  too ;  but  I  fancy  few  minis- 
ters played  either  that  or  like  games.  On  the  second 
Christmas,  at  Plymouth,  we  find  some  of  the  Pilgrims 
playing  pitch-the-bar  and  stool-ball.  Pitch-the-bar 
was  a  trial  of  strength  rather  than  of  skill,  and  was 


SPORTS   AND  DIVEllSIOKS  239 

popular  with  sturdy  Nantucket  whalers  till  into  this 
century,  though  deemed  hopelessly  plebeian  in  old 
England. 

We  hear  of  foot-ball  being  played  by  Boston  boys 
in  Boston  streets  and  lanes ;  of  the  Kowley  Indians 
playing  it  in  1686  on  the  broad  sandy  shore,  where 
it  was  "more  easie,"  since  they  played  barefooted. 
Dunton  adds  of  their  sport :  "  Neither  were  they  so 
apt  to  trip  up  one  anothers  feet  and  quarrel  as  I 
have  often  seen  'em  in  England" — and  I  may  add,  as 
I  have  often  seen  'em  in  New  England. 

Playing-cards  —  the  devil's  picture-books  —  were 
hated  by  the  Puritans  like  the  very  devil ;  and,  as 
ever  with  forbidden  pleasures,  were  a  constant  temp- 
tation to  Puritan  youth.  Their  importation,  use,  and 
sale  were  forbidden.  As  late  as  1784  a  fine  of 
$7  was  ordered  to  be  paid  for  every  pack  of  cards 
sold ;  and  yet  in  1740  we  find  Peter  Fanueil  order- 
ing six  gross  of  best  King  Henry's  cards  from  Eng- 
land. Jolley  Allen  had  cards  constantly  for  sale — 
"Best  Merry  Andrew,  King  Harry  and  Highland 
Cards  a  Dollar  per  Doz."  and  also  "Blanchards  Great 
Mogul  Playing  Cards."  The  fine  for  selling  these 
cards  must  have  been  a  dead  letter,  for  we  find  in 
the  newspapers  proof  of  the  prevalence  of  card- 
playing. 

One  use  for  playing-cards  other  than  their  intend- 
ed one  was  found  in  their  employment  to  inscribe 
invitations  upon.  Ball  invitations  were  frequently 
written  upon  the  backs  of  playing-cards,  and  dinner 
invitations  also. 


240  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

In  the  Salem  Gazette,  in  1784,  appeared  "  New  In 
Laid  Cribbage  Boxes,  Leather  Gammon  Tables,  and 
Quadrille  Pools."  In  the  Evening  Post,  in  1772,  may 
be  seen  "  Quadrille  Boxes  and  Pearl  Fishes ; "  and 
I  do  not  doubt  that  many  a  gay  Boston  belle  or 
beau  (as  well  as  Mrs.  Knox)  gambled  all  night  at 
quadrille  and  ombre,  as  did  their  cousins  in  London. 
Captain  Goelet  had  many  a  game  of  cards  in  his 
travels  through  New  England,  in  1750. 

On  April  30,  1722,  the  New  England  C our  ant  ad- 
vertised that  any  gentleman  that  "had  a  Mind  to 
Recreate  themselves  with  a  Game  of  Billiards  "  could 
do  so  at  a  public  house  in  Charlestown. 

It  is  curious  to  find  how  eagerly  the  staid  colonists 
turned  to  dancing.     Mr.  Eggleston  says  : 

"  The  savages  themselves  were  not  more  fond  of  danc- 
ing than  were  the  colonists  who  came  after  them.  Danc- 
ing schools  were  forbidden  in  New  England  by  the  au- 
thorities but  dancing  could  not  be  repressed  in  an  age  in 
which  the  range  of  conversation  was  necessarily  narrow 
and  the  appetite  for  physical  activity  and  excitement  al- 
most insatiable." 

Dancing  was  forbidden  in  Massachusetts  taverns 
and  at  weddings,  but  it  was  encouraged  at  Connecti- 
cut ordinations.  In  a  letter  written  by  John  Cotton, 
that  good  man  specifies  that  his  condemnation  is  not 
of  dancing  "  even  mixt "  as  a  whole,  but  of  "  lasciv- 
ious dancing  to  wanton  ditties  with  amorous  gestures 
and  wanton  dalliances ; "  an  objection  in  which  I 
hope  he  is  not  singular,  an  we  be  not  Puritan  minis- 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  241 

ters  ;  and  an  objection  which  makes  us  suspect,  an  he 
were  a  Puritan  minister,  that  he  had  been  in  some 
very  singular  company. 

In  1713  a  ball  was  given  by  the  governor  in  Bos- 
ton, at  which  light-heeled  and  light-minded  Boston- 
ians  of  the  governor's  set  danced  till  three  in  the 
morning.  As  balls  and  routs  began  at  six  in  the 
afternoon,  this  gave  long  dancing-hours.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  find  sober  folk  reading  "  An  Arrow 
against  Profane  and  Promiscuous  Dancing  Drawn 
out  of  the  Quiver  of  the  Scriptures  By  the  Ministers 
of  Christ  at  Boston."  And  though  one  dancing- 
master  was  forbidden  room  to  set  up  his  school,  we 
find  that "  Abigaill  Hutchinson  was  entered  to  lem  to 
dance "  somewhere  in  Boston  in  1717,  probably  at 
the  school  of  Mr.  George  Brownell.  By  Eevolution- 
ary  times  old  and  young  danced  with  zest  at  balls,  at 
"  turtle-frolicks,"  at  weddings.  President  Washington 
and  Mrs.  General  Greene  "  danced  upwards  of  three 
hours  without  once  sitting  down,"  and  General  Greene 
called  this  diversion  of  the  august  Father  of  his 
Country  "  a  pretty  Httle  frisk."  By  1791  we  find 
Eev.  John  Bennett,  in  his  "Letters  to  a  Young  Lady," 
recommending  dancing  as  a  proper  and  healthful  ex- 
ercise. Queer  names  did  early  contra-dances  bear : 
Old  Father  George,  Cape  Breton,  High  Betty  Martin, 
Rolling  Hornpipe,  Constancy,  Orange  Tree,  Spring- 
field, Assembly,  The  President,  Miss  Foster's  De- 
light, Pettycoatee,  Priest's  House,  The  Lady's  Choice, 
and  Leather  the  Strap.  By  Federal  times  came 
Federal  dances. 
16 


242  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

Such  care  was  paid  by  New  Englanders  to  the 
raising  and  improving  of  horses  that  I  presume 
horse-races  did  not  seem  so  wicked  as  card-playing 
or  dancing,  for  I  find  hint  of  a  horse-race  in  the  Bos- 
ton  Neivs  Letter  of  August  29,  1715,  for  Jonathan 
Turner  therein  challenged  the  whole  country  to 
match  his  black  gelding  in  a  race  for  a  hundred 
pounds,  to  take  place  on  Metonomy  Common  or 
Chelsea  Beach.  Many  pace-races  took  place  in  Nar- 
ragansett  on  Little  Neck  Beach,  at  which  the  prizes 
were  silver  tankards.  And  if  we  can  believe  Dr. 
MacSparran,  or,  rather,  since  we  would  not  appear  to 
doubt  the  word  of  a  clergyman,  especially  upon  the 
speed  of  a  horse,  if  he  took  the  time  of  "  a  little  over 
two  minutes  "  with  any  care  and  had  a  good  watch, 
there  must  have  been  some  very  good  sport  on  Little 
Neck  Beach. 

Though  the  Puritan  magistrates  denounced  shows 
as  a  great  "  mispense  of  time,"  yet  after  a  century's 
existence  in  the  New  World,  the  people  was  so  amuse- 
ment hungry  that  all  turned  avidly  to  any  kind  of 
exhibition,  and  but  little  was  necessary  to  make  an 
exhibition.  A  "  Lyon  of  Barbary  "  was  in  Boston  in 
1716  ;  and  I  believe  the  "  lyons  hair,"  which  was  "cut 
by  the  keeper"  and  sent  by  Wait  Winthrop  to  be 
placed  as  a  strengthening  tonic  under  the  armpits  of 
his  sickly  little  grandchild,  was  abstracted  from  this 
very  lion.  In  1728  another  lonely  king  of  the  beasts 
made  the  round  of  all  the  provinces  on  a  cart  drawn 
by  four  oxen,  with  as  much  eclat  as  if  he  had  been  a 
whole   menagerie.      He  lodged  in  New  London  in 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  243 

Madam  Wintlirop's  barn,  and  "  put  lip  "  elsewhere  at 
the  very  best  taverns,  as  became  a  royal  visitor,  yet 
seems  a  semi-pathetic  figure — a  tropical  king  in  sla- 
very and  alone  in  a  strange,  cold  land. 

In  December,  1733,  and  in  1734,  rivals  appeared 
at  a  Boston  tavern,  and  were  advertised  in  the  Weekly 
Rehearsal, 

"  A  Fine  Large  White  Bear  brought  from  Greenland, 
the  like  never  been  seen  before  in  these  Parts  of  the 
World.  A  Sight  far  preferable  to  the  Lion  in  the  Judg- 
ment of  all  Persons  who  have  seen  them  both.  N.B. 
He  is  certainly  going  to  London  in  about  3  Weeks  & 
his  Farewel  Speech  will  be  published  in  a  day  or  two." 

**  To  be  seen  at  the  Shop  of  Mr.  Benjamin  Bunker  Tin- 
man near  the  Market  House  on  Dock  Square  a  very 
Strange  &  Wonderful  Creature  called  a  Sea  Lion  lately 
taken  at  Monument  Pond  near  Plimouth  The  like  of 
which  never  seen  in  these  Pari  s  before.  He  is  Nine  Feet 
long  from  His  Bump  to  his  Head  &  near  4  feet  wide  over 
his  back  with  Four  Large  Feet  &  Five  Strong  Claws  on 
Each.  Also  Two  Large  Strong  Teeth  as  white  as  Ivory 
sticking  out  of  his  mouth  five  or  six  Inches  long  with 
many  other  Curiosities  too  Tedious  to  mention  here. 
Price  Sixpence  for  a  Man  or  Woman  &  2  Pence  for  a 
child." 

The  Boston  Gazette  of  April  20, 1741,  thus  adver- 
tised : 

"To  be  seen  at  the  Greyhound  Tavern  in  Boxbury  a 
wild  creature  which  was  caught  in  the  woods  about  80 


244  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

miles  to  the  Westward  of  this  place  called  a  Cattamount. 
It  has  a  tail  like  a  Lyon,  its  legs  are  like  Bears,  its  Claws 
like  an  Eagle,  its  Eyes  like  a  Tyger,  He  is  exceedingly 
ravenous  and  devours  all  sorts  of  Creatures  that  he  can 
come  near.  Its  agility  is  surprising.  It  will  leap  30 
feet  at  one  jump  notwithstanding  it  is  but  3  months  old. 
Whoever  wishes  to  see  this  creature  may  come  to  the 
place  aforesaid  paying  one  shilling  each  shall  be  welcome  . 
for  their  money." 

Salem  had  tbe  pleasure  of  view^ing  a  "Sapient 
Dog"  who  could  light  lamps,  spell,  read  print  or 
■writing,  tell  the  time  of  day,  or  day  of  the  month. 
He  could  distinguish  colors,  was  a  good  arithme- 
tician, could  discharge  a  loaded  cannon,  tell  a  hidden 
card  in  a  pack,  and  jump  through  a  hoop,  all  for 
twenty -five  cents.  About  the  same  time  Mr.  Pinch- 
beck exhibited  in  the  same  town  a  "  Pig  of  Knowl- 
edge" who  had  precisely  the  same  accomplish- 
ments. 

In  1789  a  pair  of  camels  went  the  rounds — "  19 
hands  high,  with  4  joints  in  their  hind  legs."  A  mer- 
maid also  was  exhibited — defunct,  I  presume — and  a 
living  cassowary  five  feet  high,  that  swallowed  stones 
as  large  as  an  egg.  A  white  sea  bear  appeared  in  the 
port  of  Pollard's  Tavern  and  could  be  seen  for  half  a 
pistareen.  A  forlorn  moose  was  held  in  bondage  at 
Major  King's  tavern  and  shown  for  nine  pence,  while  to 
view  the  "  leapord  strongly  chayned  "  cost  a  quarter. 
The  big  hog,  being  a  home  production,  could  be  seen 
cheaply — for  four  pence.  It  is  indeed  curious  to  find 
a  rabbit  among  "curious  wild  beasts."     The  Win- 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  245 

tlirops  had  tried  to  breed  rabbits  in  1633  and  again 
in  1683,  and  if  they  had  not  succeeded  .were  the  only 
souls  known  to  fail  in  j;hat  facile  endeavor.  To  their 
shame  be  it  told,  Salem  folk  announced  in  1809  a  bull- 
fight at  the  Half-Way  House  on  the  new  turnpike, 
and  after  the  bull-fight  a  fox-chase.  In  1735  John 
Burlesson  had  some  strange  aniihals  to  show,  and  was 
not  always  allowed  to  exhibit  thein  either :  "  the  Lyon, 
the  Black  and  Whight  bare  and  the  Lanechtskipt  were 
shown  by  me  that  had  their  limbs  as  long  as  they 
pleased." 

There  were  also  exhibitions  of  legerdemain^ — a 
"Posture  Master  Boy  who  performed  most  surpriz- 
ing Postures,  Transforming  Himself  into  Various 
Shapes  ;  "  performers  on  the  "  tort  rope  ;  "  solar 
microscopes;  "Italian  Matcheans  or  Moving  Pict- 
ures wherein  are  to  be  seen  Windmills  and  Water- 
mills  moving  around  Ships  sayling  in  the  Seas,  and 
various  curious  figures ; "  electrical  machines ;  "  pros- 
pects of  London  "  or  of  "  Royall  Pallaces  ;  "  but,  to 
their  credit  and  good  taste  be  it  recorded,  I  find  no 
notices  of  monstrosities  either  in  shape  of  man  or 
beast.  Exhibitions  of  wax  figures  were  given  and 
museums  were  formed.  Gentlemen  sailing  for  for- 
eign ports  were  begged  to  collect  for  museums  and 
collections  of  curiosities,  and  did  so  in  a  thoroughly 
public-spirited  manner. 

Shortly  after  the  invention  of  balloons  came  their 
advent  as  popular  shows  into  New  England  towns. 
In  Hartford  they  appeared  under  the  pompous  title 
of  "  Archimedial  Phaetons,  Vertical  Aerial  Coaches, 


246  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

or  Patent  Foecleral  Balloons,"  and  the  public  was 
notified  that  "persons  of  timid  nature  might  en- 
ter with  full  assurance  of  safety."  These  foederal 
balloons  not  only  served  to  amuse  New  Englanders, 
but  were  strongly  recommended  to  "  Invaletudina- 
rians"  as  hygienic  and  medicinal  factors,  in  that 
through  their  employment  as  carriers  they  caused 
"sudden  revulsion  of  the  blood  and  humours"  to  the 
benefit  of  the  aeronautic  travellers. 

The  first  stepping-in  of  theatrical  performances 
was  to  the  lively  tunes  of  jigs  and  corams  on  a  stage. 
In  1713  permission  was  asked  to  act  a  play  in  the 
Council  House  in  Boston.  Judge  Sewall's  grief  and 
amazement  at  this  suggestion  of  "  Dances  and  Scenical 
Divertessiments  "  within  those  solemn  walls  can  well 
be  imagined.  Ere  long  little  plays  called  drolls  were 
exhibited  ;  puppet  shows  such  as  "Pickle  Herring," 
or  the  "  Taylor  ryding  to  Brentford,"  or  "  Harlequinn 
and  Scaramouch."  About  1750  two  young  English 
strollers  produced  Otway's  "  Orphans  "  in  a  Boston 
coffee-house.  Prompt  and  strict  measures  by  Boston 
magistrates  nipped  in  the  bud  this  feeble  dramatic 
plant,  and  Boston  had  no  more  plays  for  many 
years. 

Many  ingenious  ruses  were  invented  to  avoid  the 
legal  obstructions  placed  in  the  way  of  play-acting. 
"  Histrionic  academies "  tried  to  sneak  in  on  the 
stage ;  and  in  1762  a  clever  manager  gave  an  enter- 
tainment whose  playbill  I  present  as  the  most  amus- 
ing example  of  specious  and  sanctimonious  truckling 
extant. 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  247 

Kings  Arms  Tavern— Newport  Rhode  Island. 

On  Monday,  June  10th,  at  the  Public  Room  of  the  above 
Inn  will  be  delivered  a  series  of 

Moral  Dialogxjes 

in  Five  Parts 

Depicting  the  evil  effects  of  jealousy  and  other  bad  passions 

and  Proving  that  happiness  can  only  spring  from  the  pursuit 

of  Virtue. 

Mr  Douglass — Will    represent  a  noble  and  magnanimous 
Moor  called  Othello,  who  loves  a  young  lady  named  Desde- 
mona,  and  after  he  marries  her,  harbours  (as  in  too  many 
cases)  the  dreadful  passion  of  jealousy. 
Of  jealousy,  our  beings  bane^ 
Mark  the  small  cause,  and  the  most  dreadful  pain. 
Mr  Allyn — Will  depict  the  character  of  a  specious  villain, 
in  the  regiment  of  Othello,  who  is  so  base  as  to  hate  his  com- 
mander on  mere  suspicion,  and  to  impose  on  his  best  friend. 
Of  such  characters,  it  is  to  be  feared,  there  are  thousands  in 
the  world,  and  the  one  in  question  may  present  to  us  a  salu- 
taiy  warning. 

The  man  that  wrongs  his  master  and  hisfHend^ 
What  can  he  come  to  but  a  shampful  end  ? 
Mr  Hallam — Will  delineate  a  young  and  thoughtless  officer 
who  is  traduced  by  Mr.  Allyn,  and,  getting  drunk,  loses  his 
situation  and  his  generals  esteem.    All  young  men  whatso- 
ever, take  example  from  Cassio. 

The  ill  effects  of  drinking  would  you  see 

Be  warned  and  fly  from  evil  company. 

Mr  Morris — ^Will  represent  an  old  gentleman,  the  father  of 

Desdemona,  who   is  not  cruel  or  covetous,  but    is    foolish 

enough  to  dislike  the  noble  Moor,  his  son-in-law,  because  his 

face  is  not  white,  forgetting  that  we  all  spring  from  one  root. 

Such  prejudices  are  very  numerous  and  veiy  wrong. 

Fathers,  beware  what  sense  and  love  ye  lack, 

*Ti8  crime,  not  colour ^  makes  the  being  black. 


248  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

Mr  Quelch — Will  depict  a  fool  who  wishes  to  become  a 
knave,  and  trusting  to  one,  gets  killed  by  one.  Such  is  the 
friendship  of  rogues.     Take  heed  ! 

Where  fools  'would  knaves  become,  how  often  you^ll 
Perceive  the  knave  not  wiser  than  the  fool. 
Mrs  Morris — Will  represent  a  young  and   virtuous  wife, 
who,  being  wrongfully  suspected,  gets  smothered  (in  an  Ad- 
joining room)  by  her  husband. 

Reader^  attend,  and  ere  thou  goest  hence, 
Let  fall  a  tear  to  hapless  innocence. 
Mrs  Douglass — Will  be  her  faithful  attendant,  who  will  hold 
out  a  good  examjjle  to  all  servants,  male  and  female,  and  to 
all  people  in  subjection. 

Obedience  and  gratitude, 
Are  things  as  rare  as  they  are  good. 
Various  other  Dialogues,  too  numerous  to  mention  here, 
will  be  delivered  at  night,  all  adapted  to  the  improvement 
of  the  mind  and  manners.  The  whole  will  be  repeated  on 
Wednesday  and  on  Saturday.  Tickets,  six  shillings  each ; 
to  be  had  within.  Commencement  at  7.  Conclusion  at  half 
past  10 ;  in  order  that  every  spectator  may  go  home  at  a 
sober  hour,  and  reflect  upon  what  he  has  seen,  before  he  re- 
tires to  rest. 

God  save  the  King, 
And  long  may  he  sway. 
East,  north  and  south 
And  fair  America. 

The  Continental  Congress  of  1774  sought  to  pledge 
the  colonists  to  discountenance  "all  exhibitions  of 
shews,  plays,  and  other  expensive  diversions  and  en- 
tertainments," and  such  exhibitions  languished  natu- 
rally in  war  times  ;  but  with  peace  came  new  life  to 
shows  and  theatres. 

We  catch   a  glimpse  at   Hartford   of  the  "New 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  249 

Theatre  "  in  1795.  The  play  began  at  half  after  six. 
Following  the  English  fashion,  servants  were  sent  in 
advance  to  keep  seats  for  their  masters  and  mis- 
tresses. They  were  instructed  to  be  there  "  by  Five 
at  the  Farthest."  If  ladies  "chused  to  sit  in  the 
Pit "  a  place  was  partitioned  off  for  them.  The  admis- 
sion price  was  a  dollar.  There  w^as  variety  in  the  en- 
tertainment furnished.  One  actor  gave  a  character 
recitation  entitled  "  The  New  Bow  Wow."  In  this  he 
played  the  "  Sly  Dog,  the  Sulky  Dog,  the  Hearty  Dog, 
and  many  other  dogs  in  his  character  of  Odd  Dog." 

In  1788  the  "Junior  Sophister  Class"  of  Yale  Col- 
lege gave  a  theatrical  performance,  during  Election 
week,  of  "  Tancred  and  Sigismunda,"  and  followed  it 
with  a  farce  of  the  students'  own  composing,  relating 
to  events  in  the  Eevolutionary  War.  A  letter  of  Rev. 
Andrew  Eliot  is  still  in  existence  referring  to  this 
presentation,  and  severely  did  he  reprehend  it.  Of 
the  farce  he  wrote,  "  To  keep  up  the  character  of  these 
Generals,  especially  Prescot,  they  were  obliged  (I  be- 
lieve not  to  their  sorrow)  to  indulge  in  very  indecent 
and  profane  language."  He  states  that  many  in 
the  audience  were  much  offended  thereat,  and  says : 
"  What  adds  to  the  illegality  is  that  the  actors  not 
only  were  di'essed  agreeable  to  the  characters  they 
assumed  as  Men,  but  female  apparell  and  ornaments 
were  put  on  some  contrary  to  an  express  statute. 
Besides  it  cost  the  lads  £60."  What  this  reverend 
complainer  would  have  thought  of  the  multitudinous 
exhibitions  of  masculine  collegiate  skirt-dancing  of 
the  present  day  is  impossible  to  fathom. 


260  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

There  were  circuses  also  in  Connecticut.  "Mr. 
Pool  The  first  American  Equestrian  has  erected  a 
Menage  at  considerable  Expence  with  seats  Conven- 
ient. Mr.  Pool  beseeches  the  Ladies  and  Gentlemen 
who  honour  him  with  their  Presence  to  bring  no  Dogs 
with  them."  As  late  as  1828  a  bill  prohibiting  circus 
exhibitions  passed  both  houses  of  the  Connecticut 
Legislature,  but  was  all  in  vain,  for  that  State  became 
the  home  of  circuses  and  circus-makers. 

During  the  seventeenth  century  and  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  little  in  New 
England  that  could  properly  receive  the  name  of 
music.  Musical  instruments  and  books  of  musical 
instruction  were  rare.  I  have  told  the  deplorable 
condition  of  church  music  in  "  The  Sabbath  in  Puri- 
tan New  England."  A  feeling  of  revolt  rose  in  min- 
isters and  congregation.  In  1712  Eev.  Mr.  Tuft's 
music-book  appeared.  The  first  organ  came  to  Bos- 
ton about  1711.  The  first  concert  of  which  I  have 
read  was  advertised  thus  in  the  New  England  Weekly 
Journal  of  December  15,  1732  : 

"  This  is  to  inform  the  Publick  That  there  will  be  a 
Consort  of  Music  Performed  by  Sundry  Instruments  at 
the  Court  Room  iu  Wings  Lane  near  the  Town  Dock  on 
the  28th  of  this  lustant  December ;  Tickets  will  be  de- 
liver'd  at  the  Place  of  Performance  at  Five  Shillings  each 
Ticket.     N.B.     No  Person  will  be  admitted  after  Six." 

In  1744  a  concert  was  given  in  Faneuil  Hall  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor,  and  after  1760  concerts  were  fre- 
quent.    The  universal   time  for  beginning  was  six 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSIONS  251 

o'clock,  and  the  highest  price  of  admission  haK  a  dol- 
lar, until  after  17^90. 

Singing-schools,  too,  were  formed,  and  the  bands  of 
trained  singers  gave  concerts.  The  story  of  the  prog- 
ress of  New  England  concert-giving  has  been  most 
fully  given  by  Henry  M.  Brooks,  esq.,  in  his  delight- 
ful book,  "Olden  Time  Music." 

Lectures  on  pneumatics,  electricity,  and  philosophy 
were  given  in  Boston  as  early  as  1740,  and  soon  ac- 
quired a  popularity  which  they  have  retained  to  the 
present  day. 

A  very  doubtful  form  of  diversion  was  furnished 
to  New  Englanders  at  the  public  expense  and  in  the 
performance  of  public  duties.  Not  only  were  offend- 
ers whipped,  set  in  the  stocks,  bilboes,  cage,  or  pil- 
lory on  Lecture-day,  but  criminals  were  hung  with 
much  parade  before  the  eyes  of  the  people,  as  a  visi- 
ble token  of  the  punishment  of  evil  living.  In  all 
the  civil  and  religious  exercises  previous  to  the  exe- 
cution of  the  sentence,  publicity  was  given  to  the  of- 
fender ;  petty  and  great  malefactors  were  preached  at 
when  sentenced,  and  after  condemnation  were  made 
public  examples — were  brought  into  church  and  made 
the  subject  of  discourse  and  even  of  objurgation  from 
the  pulpit.  Judge  Sewall  frequently  refers  to  this 
meretricious  custom.  Under  date  March  11,  1685, 
he  says :  "  Persons  crowd  much  into  the  old  Meet- 
ing House  by  reason  of  James  Morgan  (who  was  a 
condemned  murderer)  and  a  very  exciting  and  riot- 
ous scene  took  place."  This  was  at  a  Thursday 
lecture,  and  in  the  gloomy  winter,  twilight  of  the 


252  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

same  day  the  murderer  was  executed — "tum'd  off" 
as  Sewall  said — after  a  parting  prayer  by  Cotton 
Mather,  who  had  preached  over  him  in  the  morning* 
Cotton  Mather's  sermon  and  others  on  Morgan  and 
his  crimes,  which  were  preached  by  Increase  Mather 
and  Joshua  Moodey,  were  printed  and  sold  in  vast 
numbers,  passing  through  several  editions.  Morgan's 
dying  words  and  confessions  were  also  printed  and 
sold  throughout  New  England  by  chapmen. 

Captain  Quelch  and  six  other  pirates  were  capt- 
ured on  June  11,  1704 ;  were  brought  to  Boston  on 
the  17th,  sentenced  on  the  19th,  and,  "  the  silver  oar 
being  carried  before  them  to  the  place  of  execution,'* 
were  hung  on  the  30th.  An  "  extra  "  of  the  Neivs 
Letter  says  that  "  Sermons  were  preached  in  their 
Hearing  Every  Day,  And  Prayers  made  daily  with 
them.  And  they  were  Catechized  and  they  had 
many  Occasional  exhortations ; "  but  the  paper  also 
states,  "  yet  as  they  led  a  wicked  and  vitious  life  so  to 
appearance  they  died  very  obdurately  and  impeni- 
tently  hardened  in  their  sin."  Sewall  gives  this 
painfully  particular  account  of  the  execution  : 

"  After  Dinner  about  3  P.M.  I  went  to  see  the  Execu- 
tion. Many  were  the  people  that  saw  upon  Broughtons 
Hill  But  when  I  came  to  see  how  the  River  was  covered 
with  People  I  was  amazed  ;  Some  say  there  were  100 
boats.  150  Boats  &  Canoes  saith  Cousin  Moody  of  York. 
He  Told  them.  Mr.  Cotton  Mather  came  with  Captain 
Quelch  &  6  others  for  Execution  from  the  Prison  to  Scar- 
letts  Wharf  and  from  thence  in  Boat  to  the  place  of  Exe- 
cution.    When  the  Scaffold  was  hoisted  to  a  due  height 


SPORTS   AND   DIVERSION'S  253 

the  seven  Malefactors  went  up.  Mr.  Mather  pray'd  for 
them  standing  upon  the  Boat.  Ropes  were  all  fastened 
to  the  Gallows  save  King  who  was  Reprieved.  When  the 
Scaffold  was  let  to  sink  there  was  such  a  Screech  of  the 
Women  that  my  wife  heard  it  sitting  in  our  Entry  next 
the  Orchard  and  was  much  surprised  at  it,  yet  the  wind 
was  sou-west.     Our  house  is  a  full  mile  from  the  place." 

In  another  entry  Sewall  tells  of  brazen  women 
jumping  up  on  the  cart  with  a  condemned  man. 

A  note  was  appended  by  Dr.  Ephraim  Eliot  to  the 
last  page  of  a  sermon  delivered  by  his  father,  Dr. 
Andrew  Eliot,  on  the  Sunday  before  the  execution  of 
Levi  Ames,  who  was  hung  for  burglary  October  21, 
1773.  Ames  was  present  in  church,  and  the  sermon 
was  preached  at  his  request.     The  note  runs  thus  : 

"Levi  Ames  was  a  noted  offender — though  a  young  man, 
he  had  gone  through  all  the  routine  of  punishment,  and 
there  was  now  another  indictment  against  him  where 
there  was  positive  proof,  in  addition  to  his  own  confession. 
He  was  tried  and  condemned.  His  condemnation  excited 
extraordinary  sympathy.  He  was  every  Sabbath  carried 
through  the  streets  with  chains  about  his  ankles,  and 
handcuffed,  in  custody  of  the  Sheriff'  officers  and  consta- 
bles, to  some  public  meeting,  attended  by  an  innumer- 
able number  of  boys,  women  and  men.  Nothing  was 
talked  of  but  Levi  Ames.  The  ministers  were  successive- 
ly employed  in  delivering  occasional  discourses.  Still- 
man  improved  the  opportunity  several  times  and  abso- 
lutely persuaded  the  fellow  that  he  was  to  step  from  the 
cart  into  Heaven." 


254  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

One  "Worcester  County  murderess  was  hanged  on 
Boston  Common,  and  to  the  delight  of  beholders  ap- 
peared in  a  beautiful  white  satin  gown  to  be  "  tum'd 
off." 

I  think,  in  reading  of  the  past,  that  next  to  execu- 
tions the  most  vivid  excitement,  the  most  absorbing 
interest — indeed,  the  greatest  amusement  of  NewEng- 
landers  of  the  half  century  preceding  and  that  suc- 
ceeding the  Bevolutionary  War — was  found  in  the 
lottery.  An  act  of  Legislature  in  1719  speaks  of  them 
as  just  introduced ;  but  this  licensed  and  highly  ap- 
proved form  of  gambling  quickly  had  the  sanction  and 
participation  of  the  entire  community.  The  most 
esteemed  citizens  not  only  bought  tickets,  but  sold 
them.  Every  scheme  of  public  benefit,  the  raising  of 
every  fund  for  every  purpose,  was  conducted  and  as- 
sisted through  a  lottery.  Harvard,  Ehode  Island 
(now  Brown  University),  and  Dartmouth  College  thus 
increased  their  endowments.  Towns  and  States  thus 
raised  money  to  pay  the  public  debt.  Congrega- 
tional, Baptist,  and  Episcopal  churches  had  lotteries 
"  for  promoting  public  worship  and  the  advancement 
of  religion."  Canals,  turnpikes,  bridges,  excavations, 
public  buildings  were  brought  to  perfection  by  lot- 
teries. Schools  and  academies  were  thus  endowed ; 
for  instance,  the  Leicester  Academy  and  the  Will- 
iamstown  Free  School.  In  short,  "the  interests  of 
literature  were  supported,  the  arts  encouraged,  the 
wastes  of  wars  repaired,  inundations  prevented,  the 
burthen  of  the  taxes  lessened  "  by  lotteries.  Private  . 
lotteries  were  also  carried  on  in  great  number,  as 


SPORTS   AND  DIVERSIONS  255 

frequent  advertisements  show;  pieces  of  furniture, 
wearing  apparel,  real  estate,  jewelry,  and  books  being 
given  as  prizes.  Much  deception  was  practised  in 
those  private  lotteries. 

Though  many  lotteries  were  ostensibly  for  chari- 
table, educational,  or  other  beneficial  purposes,  the 
proportion  of  profit  applied  to  such  purposes  was 
small.  The  Newbury  Bridge  Lottery  sold  ten  thou- 
sand dollars'  worth  of  tickets  to  raise  one  thousand 
dollars.  The  lottery  to  assist  in  rebuilding  Faneuil 
Hall  was  to  secure  one-tenth  of  the  value  of  tickets. 
Harvard  College  hoped  to  have  twelve  and  a  haK  per 
cent.  The  glowing  advertisements  of  "  Eich  Wheels," 
"Eeal  &  Truly  Fortunate  Offices,"  "Lucky  Num- 
bers," "  Full  Drawings,"  appealed  to  every  class ;  the 
poorest  could  buy  a  quarter  of  a  ticket  as  a  specula- 
tion. New  England  clergymen  seemed  specially  to 
delight  in  this  gambling  excitement. 

The  evil  of  the  system  could  not  fail  to  be  discovered 
by  intelligent  citizens.  Judge  Sewall,  ever  thoughtful, 
wrote  his  protest  to  friends  when  he  found  advertise- 
ments of  four  lotteries  in  one  issue  of  the  Boston  Neius 
Letter.  Though  I  have  seen  lottery  tickets  signed  by 
John  Hancock,  he  publicly  expressed  his  aversion 
to  the  system,  and  Joel  Barker  and  others  wrote 
in  condemnation.  By  1830  the  whole  community 
seemed  to  have  wakened  to  a  sense  of  their  per- 
nicious and  unprofitable  effect,  and  laws  were  passed 
prohibiting  them. 

The  sports  and  diversions  herein  named,  of  the  first 
century  of  the  Puritan  commonwealth,  were,  after 


256  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

all,  joined  in  by  but  a  scanty  handful  of  junketers. 
We  see  in  our  picture  of  the  olden  times  no  revellers, 
but  a  **  crowd  of  sad-visaged  people  moving  duskily 
through  a  dull  gray  atmosphere,"  who  found,  as  Car- 
lyle  said,  that  work-  was  enjoyment  enough.  The 
Pilgrim  Fathers  had  been  saddened  with  war  and 
pestilence,  with  superstition,  with  exile,  still  they  had 
as  a  contrast  the  keen  novelty  of  life  in  the  pictu- 
resque new  land.  The  sons  had  lost  all  the  romance 
and  were  more  narrow,  more  intolerant.  But  w^  must 
not  think  them  unhappy  because  they  thought  it  no 
time  for  New  England  to  dance.  There  be  those 
nowadays  who  care  not  for  dancing,  nor  for  the  play- 
ing of  games,  yet  are  not  unhappy.  There  be,  also,  I 
trow,  those  who  fare  not  at  fairs,  and  show  not  at 
shows,  and  would  fain  read  sober  books  or  study 
their  Bible  as  did  the  Puritans,  and  yet  are  cheerful. 
And  perhaps  also  there  is  a  singular  little  band  of 
those  who  love  not  the  play — a  few  such  I  wot  of 
Puritan  blood — yet  aj?e  not  sorrowful.  Hawthorne 
said :  "  Happiness  may  walk  soberly  in  dark  attire  as 
well  as  dance  lightsomely  in  a  gala-dress."  And  I 
cannot  doubt  that  good  Judge  Sewall  found  as  true 
and  deep  a  pleasure — albeit  a  melancholy  one — in 
slowly  leading,  sable-gloved  and  sable-cloaked,  the 
funeral  procession  of  one  of  the  honored  deputies 
through  narrow  Boston  streets,  as  did  roystering 
Morton  in  marshalling  his  drunken  revellers  at  noisy 
Merrymount. 


XI 

BOOKS  AND  BOOK-MAKERS 

There  was  no  calling,  no  profession  more  repu- 
table, more  profitable  in  early  colonial  days  than  the 
trade  of  book-selling.  President  Dunster,  of  Harvard 
College,  in  his  pm-suance  of  that  business,  gave  it  the 
highest  and  best  endorsement ;  and  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  all  the  book-sellers  were  publishers  as 
well,  books  being  printed  for  them  at  their  expense. 
John  Dunton,  in  his  "  Life  and  Errors,"  has  given  us 
a  very  distinct  picture  of  Boston  book-sellers  and 
their  trade  toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. He  landed  at  that  port  in  1686  with  a  large 
and  expensive  venture  of  books  "  suited  to  the  genius 
of  New  England,"  and  he  says  he  was  about  as  wel- 
come to  the  resident  book-sellers  as  "  Sowr  ale  in 
Summer."  Nevertheless  they  received  him  cordially 
and  hospitably,  and  he  in  turn  was  an  equally  gen- 
erous rival ;  for  he  drew  eulogistically  the  picture  of 
the  four  book-dealers  which  that  city  then  boasted. 
Mr.  Phillips  was  "very  just,  very  thriving,  young, 
witty,  and  the  most  Beautiful  man  in  the  town  of 
Boston."  Mr.  Brunning,  or  Browning,  was  a  "com- 
plete book-seller,  generous  and  trustworthy."  Dun- 
ton  says : 

17 


258  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

"  There  are  some  men  will  run  down  the  most  elabo- 
rate peices  only  because  they  had  none  of  their  Midwifery 
to  bring  them  into  public  View  and  yet  shall  give  the 
greatest  encomiums  to  the  most  Nauseous  trash  when 
they  had  the  hap  to  be  concerned  in  it." 

But  Browning  would  promote  a  good  book  who- 
ever printed  it.  Mr.  Campbell,  the  third  book-dealer, 
was  "  very  industrious,  dresses  All-a-mode  and  I  am 
told  a  young  lady  of  Great  Fortune  is  fallen  in  love 
with  him."  Of  Mr.  Usher,  the  remaining  book-trader, 
Dunton  asserts : 

"  He  makes  the  best  figure  in  Boston.  He  is  very  rich, 
adventures  much  to  sea,  but  has  got  his  Estate  by  Book 
seUiug." 

Usher  was  a  book-maker,  undertaker,  and  advent- 
urer, doubtfully  attractive  or  desirable  appellations 
nowadays ;  but  what  higher  praise  could  have  been 
given  in  colonial  tongue  ?  He  would  have  angrily  re- 
sented being  dubbed  a  publisher ;  that  name  was  as- 
signed to  and  monopolized  by  the  town-crier.  Usher 
died  worth  X20,000,  a  tidy  sum  for  those  days. 

Happy,  indeed,  were  all  the  Boston  book-sellers ; 
blessed  of  the  gods!  rich,  witty,  modish,  beloved, 
beautiful !  The  colony  was  sixty  years  old,  opulent, 
prosperous,  and  fashionable  ;  but  a  book-seller  cut  the 
best  figure.  Surely  the  book  trade  had  in  Boston  a 
glorious  ushering  in,  a  golden  promise  which  has  not 
yet  deserted  it. 

Book-printing,  too,  was  a  highly  honored  calling. 


BOOKS   AND  BOOK-MAKERS  259 

The  first  machine  for  the  craft  and  mystery  of  print- 
ing was  set  up  at  Cambridge  in  1639,  and  for  twenty- 
three  years  the  president  of  Harvard  College  was  re- 
sponsible for  its  performances.  Then  official  licensers 
were  appointed  to  control  its  productions,  and  not  till 
a  decade  of  years  before  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence were  legal  restraints  removed  from  the  colonial 
press. 

The  first  printer  in  the  colony,  Steeven  Daye,  was 
about  as  bad  a  printer  as  ever  lived,  as  his  work  in 
the  Bay  Psalm-Book  proves ;  and  he  spent  a  term 
in  Cambridge  jail,  and  was  altogether  rather  trying  in 
his  relations  with  the  godly  ministers  who  were  asso- 
ciated with  him  in  his  print ery.  The  second  printer 
had  to  sleep  in  a  cask  after  he  landed,  but  he  died 
with  a  fortune,  a  true  forerunner  of  the  self-made  men 
of  America.  The  third  printer,  Johnson,  having  a 
wife  in  England,  was  "  brought  up  "  and  bound  over 
before  the  court  not  to  seduce  the  affections  of  the 
daughter  of  printer  No.  2.  The  next  Bostonians  who 
tried  their  hands  at  the  mechanical  part  of  book- 
making — the  printing  and  binding — were  two  of  the 
most  prominent  citizens;  Captain  Green,  a  worthy 
man,  the  father  of  nineteen  children  by  one  wife  and 
eleven  by  another,  and  rich,  too,  in  spite  of  the  thirty 
Green  olive-branches ;  and  Judge  Sewall,  also,  as 
Cotton  Mather  said,  "  edified  and  beautified  with 
many  children  " — fourteen  in  all.  Truly,  book-mak- 
ing did  prosper  a  man  mightily  both  at  home  and 
abroad  in  colonial  days. 

In  a  book-printer's  wife,  the  mother  of  the  nine- 


260  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

teen  children,  did  Dunton  find  his  ideal  New  Eng- 
land wife ;  in  a  book-printer  did  he  find  his  most 
agreeable  companion. 

"To  name  bis  trade  will  convince  the  world  he  was 
a  man  of  good  sense  and  understanding.  He  was  so 
facetious  and  obliging  and  his  conversation  such  that  I 
took  a  great  delight  in  his  company." 

So  it  may  be  seen  that  the  book-sellers  were  rivalled 
by  the  book-printers — equally  rich  and  witty  though 
not  so  beautiful.  To  the  credit  of  both  callings,  then 
and  for  a  century  to  follow,  redounds  the  fact  that 
almost  to  a  man  they  were  deacons  in  the  church. 
Mayhap  their  worldly  and  family  prosperity  was  the 
reward  of  their  piety.  As  nine-tenths  of  the  authors 
were  ministers,  and  the  publishers  all  deacons,  the 
church  had  at  that  time  what  might  be  called  a  mo- 
nopoly of  the  book  trade. 

Dunton  had  a  vast  interest  in  the  fair  sex,  owning 
plainly  that  he  had  a  "  heart  of  Wax,  Soft,  and  Soon 
mellowing,"  though  he  was  careful  on  every  page  to 
make  everything  seem  perfectly  straight  and  proper 
for  the  suspicious  perusal  of  his  English  wife ;  but 
any  nineteenth-century  reader  can  read  between  the 
lines.  His  famous  long-winded  eulogies  of  the  Boston 
virgin,  the  wife,  the  widow,  "Madam  Brick  the 
flower  of  Boston,"  and  the  half  widow  "Parte  per 
Pale,  Madam  Toy,"  whose  husband  was  at  sea ;  and 
his  long  rides  with  one  or  the  other  of  them  a-pillion- 
back  behind  him,  and  his  tedious  conversations  with 
them  on  platonics,  the  blisses  of  matrimony,  and  the 


BOOKS  AND  BOOK-MAKERS  261 

chief  causes  of  love,  show  plainly  that  he  had  a 
"  wandering  eye."  He  had  a  deal  to  say  also  of  his 
lady  customers  (who  were  much  the  same  in  olden 
times  as  nowadays) — one  simple  soul  who  turned 
over  his  books  rather  vacantly  till  he  asked  her  "  in 
Joque"  whether  she  wanted  "  Tom  Thumb"  (a  penny 
chapbook).  To  his  surprise  she  answered,  "Yes;" 
and  he  said,  still  guying,  "  in  Folio  and  with  marginal 
notes?  "  and  the  dull  creature  replied,  "  Oh  the  best." 
Another  hectored  him  by  constantly  changing  her 
mind: 

"  Beach  me  that  book,  yet — let  it  alone  ;  but  let  me  see 
it  however,  and  yet  its  no  great  matter  either." 

Another  sedate  Boston  dame  wished  "  The  School 
of  Yenus,"  to  which  he  reprovingly  answered  that  he 
had  best  give  her  instead  "  The  School  of  Virtue." 
Another,  to  whom  he  gave  a  sad  setting  off  (more 
than  hinting  at  a  painted  face,  though  she  were  a 
Puritan),  wanted  plays  and  romances  and  "  Books  of 
Gallantry."     He  adds : 

"  But  she  was  a  good  Customer  to  me.  Whilst  I  took 
her  money  I  humoured  her  pride,  and  paid  her  (1  blush 
to  say  it)  a  mighty  observance." 

He  speaks  plainly  too  of  the  men  book-buyers. 
One  Mr.  Gouge,  who  was  also  "  a  Secret  Friend  to 
the  Fair  Sex,"  bought  to  give  away  two  hundred 
copies  of  a  book  written  by  Parson  Gouge,  his  father. 
Another  "  young  beau  who  boasts  more  Villany  than 
he  ever  committed  bought  a  many  of  books ;  "  hence 


262  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

Dunton  tolerated  the  "Young  Spark's"  demoraliz- 
ing acquaintance.  Mr.  Thorncomb,  another  book- 
dealer  from  London,  also  bought  of  him,  and,  with 
the  ever  prevailing  luck  was  "  Acceptable  to  the  Fair 
Sex,  so  extremely  charming  as  makes  'em  fond  of 
being  in  his  Company.  However  he  is  a  virtuous 
person  and  deserved  all  the  Respect  they  shewed 
him."  Nor  can  I  doubt,  from  the  pervasive  spirit  of 
his  books,  that  Dunton  too  found  favor  with  the  fair. 
Though  he  spoke  so  warmly  of  individual  purchas- 
ers and  so  positively  of  the  wealth  of  his  ilk  in  Bos- 
ton, his  own  venture  was  not  vastly  prosperous.  He 
took  back  to  England  but  £400.  He  gave  the  Bos- 
ton Yankees,  too,  rather  a  bad  name  in  commercial 
transactions,  saying  : 

"There  is  no  trading  for  a  stranger  with  them  but 
with  a  Grecian  Faith  which  is  not  to  part  with  your  own 
ware  without  ready  Money ;  for  they  are  generally  very 
backward  in  their  payments  ;  great  censors  about  other 
Mens  manner  but  Extremely  Careless  about  their  own. 
When  you  are  dealing  with  'em  you  must  look  upon  'em 
as  at  cross  purposes  and  read  'em  like  Hebrew  backward  ; 
for  they  seldom  speak  &  mean  the  same  thing  but  Hke 
the  Watermen  Look  one  way  &  row  another." 

Josselyn  gave  them  no  better  name,  saying  : 

"Their  leading  men  are  damnable  rich,  inexplicably 
covetous  and  proud  ;  like  Ethiopians,  white  in  the  teeth 
only  ;  full  of  ludification  and  injurious  dealing." 

Of  Dunton's  patrons  the  majority  were  minis- 
ters, and  I  hope  all  the  reverend  gentlemen  were  as 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKERS  263 

prompt  payers  as  they  were  liberal  purchasers.  Since 
Dunton  called  ministers  "  the  greatest  benefactors  to 
Booksellers,"  I  think  they  were  not  included  in  his 
black  list.  Surely  Cotton  Mather  was  not,  for  he 
gave  away  one  thousand  books  in  one  year,  and  I 
know  he  paid  for  them  too.  One  Boston  school- 
master, however,  bought  £200  worth  of  books,  and 
when  we  consider  the  excessively  small  pay  of  mem- 
bers of  that  calling  at  that  time,  we  feel  that  he 
showed  a  liberal  interest  in  promoting  in  every  man- 
ner the  spread  of  learning,  and  only  trust  that  he 
paid  the  bill  promptly. 

In  1719  there  was  but  one  book-shop  in  New  York, 
but  of  cultured  Boston  Neal  wrote  at  that  date  :  "  The 
Exchange  is  surrounded  with  booksellers'  shops 
which  have  a  good  trade.  There  are  five  Printing 
Presses."  Succeeding  years  did  not  change  the  luck 
of  the  craft  in  Boston,  nor  dim  its  honors,  still  wealth 
and  love  poured  in  on  its  members.  The  names  of 
Henchman  and  Hancock  show  the  opulence ;  while 
Knox,  in  war  and  love  alike  prospered,  winning  the 
wealthy  "  belle  of  Massachusetts  "  for  his  bride,  and 
winning  equal  glory  with  his  sword  in  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  other  New  England  towns  did  book-publish- 
ing succeed,  though  Boston's  earlier  start,  its  lead- 
ing position,  and  its  more  carefully  preserved  history 
give  it  place  as  a  type  of  the  whole  province. 

And  now,  what  was  the  fruit  of  all  this  fairly  gar- 
nished and  richly  nourished  tree  ?  What  did  these 
prosperous  New  England  book-merchants  bring  forth 
in  the  first  century  of  book-printing  in  the  province  ? 


264  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

What  return  did  they  make  for  all  the  romantic  and 
material  support  given  them  ?  No  love-poems  or 
mild  tales  of  gallantry,  as  you  might  expect  from 
their  alleged  fascinating  traits,  but,  instead,  an  al- 
most unvaried  production  of  dreary  and  dull  funeral, 
execution,  wedding,  election,  and  baptismal  sermons, 
and  of  psalm-books,  with  here  and  there  a  "two 
penny  jeering  gigge,"  or  perhaps  an  anagram  or 
acrostic  or  "  pindarick,"  on  some  virtuous  citizen  or 
industrious  dame,  recently  deceased.  In  business 
relations  the  deacon  prevailed  powerfully  over  the 
gallant.  If,  as  Tyler  says,  the  New  England  theoc- 
racy was  a  social  structure  resting  on  a  book,  that 
corner-stone  was  the  Bay  Psalm-Book  and  the  walls 
above  it  were  built  of  sermons.  These  sermons 
seem  to  us  technical,  sapless,  and  jejune,  "  as 
soporific  as  a  bed  of  poppies,"  but  they  show  the  in- 
telligence, energy,  and  assiduity  of  the  writers  just 
as  plainly  as  they  show  the  gloomy  theology  and  sad 
earnestness  of  the  time.  And  though  no  one  now 
reads  them,  we  profoundly  respect  them,  for  they 
have  been  conned  by  our  honored  forefathers  with 
more  studious  and  loving  attention  than  falls  to  the 
lot  of  most  modern  books,  no  matter  what  their  sub- 
ject or  who  their  author. 

I  have  told  at  length  the  story  of  the  publication 
of  the  Bay  Psalm-Book  and  of  other  psalm-books 
printed  and  used  in  New  England,  in  "  The  Sabbath 
in  Puritan  New  England  "  and  I  need  not  dwell  upon 
it  here. 

The  first  book  or  tract  printed  in  Boston  was  in 


BOOKS  AND   BOOK-MAKERS  265 

1675 — an  execution  sermon,  by  Increase  Mather, 
"The  Wicked  Man's  Portion."  The  first  book 
printed  in  Connecticut  was  the  "  Saybrook  Confes- 
sion and  Platform,"  in  1710.  The  first  book  of  any 
considerable  size  printed  in  Bhode  Island  was  "  An 
Apology  for  the  True  Christian  Divinity,"  issued  in 
1729. 

There  were  a  number  of  books  for  the  Indians  in 
the  Indian  tongue  which  no  one  but  Hon.  J.  Ham- 
mond Trumbull  could  now  read  an  he  would  ;  also  a 
few  histories  of  the  Indian  wars ;  and  Thomas  Prince 
published  by  subscription  an  exceedingly  dull  chron- 
ological History  of  New  England.  As  he  began  his 
history  with  year  1,  first  month  and  sixth  day — and 
Adam,  he  had  tired  out  even  pious  Bostonians  by  the 
time  he  reached  New  England ;  and  subscriptions  and 
subscribers  languished  till  the  book  died  unmourned 
just  when  the  year  1633  had  been  caught  up  with. 
The  "  Simple  Cobler  of  Agawam  "  made  a  vast  sensa- 
tion with  his  scurrilous  bombs.  There  were  a  few  vol- 
umes of  poems  printed ;  one  by  "  the  Tenth  Muse," 
Anne  Bradstreet,  of  whose  songs  pious  and  cautious 
John  Norton  said  (and  evidently  believed  what  he 
said  too)  that  if  Virgil  could  have  read  them  he 
would  have  condemned  his  own  work  to  the  flames. 
Michael  Wigglesworth's  "  Day  of  Doom,"  that  epic 
of  hell-fire  and  damnation  which  fairly  chokes  us 
with  its  sulphurous  fumes,  was  widely  read  and 
deeply  venerated ;  in  fact  it  was  a  great  popular  suc- 
cess. Fifteen  hundred  copies  were  sold  in  the  first 
year,  one  copy  to  each  thirty-five  inhabitants  of  New 


266  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

England — a  proportion  showing  a  commercial  success 
unsurpassed  in  modern  times.  It  was  printed  also 
on  broadsides,  in  a  clieap  form,  and  hawked  over  the 
country  by  chapmen  in  order  to  further  spread  its  lurid 
and  baleful  shadow.  The  dull  but  sympathetic  "  Meat 
out  of  the  Eater  "  by  the  same  author  quickly  went 
through  five  editions.  "  New  England's  Crisis,"  "  A 
Posie  from  Old  Mr.  Dods  Garden,"  "  A  Looking 
Glasse  for  New  England,"  and  "  The  Origin  of  the 
Whalebone  Petticoat — a  Satyr,"  end  the  monotonous 
list  of  poetry.  Fully  three-quarters  of  the  entire 
number  of  publications  proceeded  from  the  prolific 
Mather  stock,  and  of  course  bore  the  pompous,  verbose, 
Mather  traits  of  authorship.  Cotton  Mather  had  the 
felicity  of  having  published  as  his  share  of  "  New 
England's  First  Fruits "  a  list  to  make  a  modem 
author  green  with  envy — three  hundred  and  eighty- 
two  different  works ;  three  hundred  of  these  may  be 
seen  in  the  library  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Soci- 
ety :  not  all  were  brought  out  in  America,  however. 
His  "Magnalia  "  was  printed  in  England,  and  the  exi- 
gences and  vicissitudes  of  publication  at  that  time  are 
fully  told  in  his  diary  ;  also  the  exalted  and  idealized 
view  which  he  took  of  authorship.  At  the  first  defi- 
nite plan  which  he  formulated  in  his  mind  of  his  his- 
tory of  New  England,  he  "  cried  mightily  to  God ; " 
and  he  went  through  a  series  of  fasts  and  vigils  at  in- 
tervals until  the  book  was  completed,  when  he  held 
extended  exercises  of  secret  thanksgiving.  Prostrate 
on  his  study  floor,  in  the  dust,  he  joyfully  received 
full  assurance  in  his  heart  from  God  that  his  work 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKERS  267 

would  be  successful.  But  writing  the  book  is  not  all 
the  work,  as  any  author  knows ;  and  he  then  had 
much  distress  and  many  troubled  fasts  over  the  best 
way  of  printing  it,  of  transporting  it  to  England ; 
and  when  at  last  he  placed  his  "  elaborate  compo- 
sures "  on  shipboard,  he  prayed  an  entire  day.  No 
ascetic  Papist  ever  observed  fast  days  more  vigorous- 
ly than  did  Cotton  Mather  while  his  book  was  on  its 
long  sea-voyage  and  in  England.  He  sent  it  in  June  in 
the  year  1700,  and  did  not  hear  from  it  till  December. 
"What  a  thrill  of  sympathy  one  feels  for  him  !  Then 
he  learned  that  the  printers  were  cold ;  the  expense 
of  publication  would  be  X600,  a  goodly  sum  to  vent- 
ure ;  it  was  "  clogged  by  the  dispositions "  of  the 
man  to  whom  it  was  sent ;  it  was  delayed  and  ob- 
structed ;  he  was  left  strangely  in  the  dark  about  it ; 
months  passed  without  any  news.  Still  his  faith  in 
God  supported  him.  At  last  a  sainted  Christian  came 
forward  in  London,  a  stranger,  and  offered  to  print 
the  book  at  his  own  expense  and  give  the  author  as 
many  copies  as  he  wished.  That  was  in  what  Carlyle 
called  "  the  Day  of  Dedications  and  Patrons,  not  of 
Bargains  with  Booksellers."  In  October,  1702,  after 
two  and  a  half  long  years  of  waiting,  one  copy  of 
the  wished-for  volume  arrived,  and  the  author  and  his 
dearest  friend,  Mr.  Bromfield,  piously  greeted  it  with 
a  day  of  solemn  fasting  and  praise. 

Can  the  contrast  of  that  day  with  the  present,  can 
the  character  of  Cotton  Mather  be  more  plainly 
shown  than  by  this  story  of  the  publication  of  the 
"  Magnalia  ?  "     Many  anxious  days  did  he  pass  over 


268  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

other  mamiscripts.  Some  were  lost  in  London  for 
seven  years.  One  book  disappeared  entirely  from  his 
ken,  but  was  recovered  by  his  heirs.  His  most  im- 
portant and  largest  work,  the  six  folio  volumes  of  his 
"Biblia  Americana,"  pursued  by  "  Strange  Frowns  of 
Heaven  "  could  not  find  a  publisher  and  still  is  un- 
printed.  Cotton  Mather  survived  his  own  era,  his 
congenial  atmosphere,  and,  whether  he  was  conscious 
of  it  or  not,  was  indeed,  as  Dexter  called  him,  a  lit- 
erary dodo,  an  isolated  relic  of  early  fantastic  meth- 
ods of  composition.  His  work  was  not,  as  Prince 
said,  "agreeable  to  the  Gust  of  his  Age."  Even  the 
name  of  Mather,  all-powerful  in  New  England,  could 
not  place  the  "  Biblia  Americana  "  ii;i  the  press. 

There  were  no  American  novels  in  those  early  days. 
The  first  book  deserving  the  appellation  that  was 
printed  in  New  England  was  "  intituled "  "  The 
Power  of  Sympathy,  or  the  Triumph  of  Nature — A 
Novel  founded  on  truth  and  dedicated  to  the  Young 
Ladies  of  America."  It  appeared  in  1789.  Four 
years  later  came  "  The  Helpless  Orphan,  or  The 
Innocent  Victim  of  Revenge,"  and  then  "  The  Co- 
quette, or  the  History  of  Eliza  Wharton." 

The  only  book  that  was  written  by  a  woman  and 
published  in  New  England  during  the  first  century 
of  New  England  printing,  was  a  collection  of  the 
poems  of  Anne  Bradstreet.  A  few — very  few — pam- 
phlets by  women  authors  of  that  date  are  also  known  : 
"  The  Confession  of  Faith — A  Summary  of  Divinity 
drawn  up  by  a  young  Gentlewoman  in  the  25th  year 
of  her  Age;"   Mrs.   Elizabeth   Cotton's    "Peculiar 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKERS  269 

Treasure  of  the  Almighty  King  Opened  ; "  Elizabeth 
White's  "  Experience  ; "  Mary  Eowlandson's  pathetic 
account  of  her  captivity — these  are  all.  Hannah 
Adams  was  the  first  New  England  women  to  adopt 
literature  as  a  profession. 

Doubtless  many  Puritans  shared  Governor  Win- 
throp's  opinion  of  literary  women,  which  that  toler- 
ant and  gentle  man  expressed  thus  : 

*'  The  Governor  of  Hartford  upon  Connecticut  came  to 
Boston,  and  brought  his  wife  with  him  (a  godly  young 
woman  and  of  special  parts)  who  was  fallen  into  a  sad  in- 
firmity, the  loss  of  her  understanding  and  reason  which 
had  been  growing  upon  her  divers  years  by  occasion  of 
her  giving  herself  wholly  to  reading  and  writing,  and  had 
written  many  books.  Her  husband  being  very  loving 
and  tender  of  her,  was  loath  to  grieve  her;  but  he  saw 
his  error  when  it  was  too  late.  For  if  she  had  attended 
her  household  affairs,  and  such  things  as  belong  to  wom- 
en, and  not  gone  out  of  her  way  and  calling  to  meddle 
in  such  things  as  are  proper  for  men,  whose  minds  are 
stronger,  etc.,  she  had  kept  her  wits,  and  might  have  im- 
proved them  usefully  and  honorably  in  the  place  God  had 
set  her." 

I  know  of  rlo  illustrated  books  printed  New  Eng- 
land in  the  seventeenth  century,  nor  any  with  frontis- 
pieces or  portraits.  In  1723  a  yortrait  of  Increase 
Mather  appeared  in  his  Life,  \vhich  was  written  by 
monopolizing  Cotton  Mather.  It  was  a  poor  thing, 
being  engraved  in  London  by  John  Sturt.  "When 
Peter  Pelham  came  to  Boston  about  1725  and  started 


270  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

as  a  portrait  engraver,  and  married  the  Widow  Cop- 
ley with  her  thriving  tobacco  shop,  he  engraved  and 
published  many  likenesses  of  authors  and  ministers, 
some  of  which  were  bound  with  their  books,  others 
sold  singly  by  subscription.  The  mezzotint  of  Cot- 
ton Mather,  made  in  1727,  sold  for  two  shillings. 
Hubbard's  Narrative  had  a  map  in  1677  ;  and  in 
1713  the  lives  of  Dr.  Faustus,  Friar  Bacon,  Conjurors 
Bungay  and  Vanderwart  were  printed  conjointly  in  a 
volume  "  with  cuts  " — perhaps  the  earliest  illustrated 
New  England  book,  unless  we  except  the  New  Eng- 
land Primer.  "  The  Prodigal  Daughter,  or  the  Dis- 
obedient Lady  Eeclaimed"  had  "curious  cuts;"  so 
also  did  the  "  Parents  Gift "  in  1741,  and  "  A  Pres- 
ent for  a  Servant  Maid."  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  was 
printed  in  Boston  in  an  illustrated  edition  in  1744. 
But  for  any  handsomely  illustrated  books  American 
readers  sent,  until  Kevolutionary  times,  to  England. 

There  were,  however,  at  a  later  date,  some  few 
books  printed  with  special  elegance,  with  broad  mar- 
gins. The  "  Discourse  on  the  United  Submission  to 
Higher  Powers "  had  some  copies  that  were  printed 
on  pages  ten  inches  by  seven  and  a  quarter  inches  in 
size,  while  the  regular  edition  was  only  six  by  six 
and  a  half  inches.  A  letter  is  in  existence  of  Gov- 
ernor Trumbull's  ordering  that  some  copies  of  the  fu- 
neral sermon  preached  at  his  wife's  death  be  printed 
on  heavy  writing  paper.  Copies  of  the  first  edition 
of  the  "  Magnalia  "  also  were  issued  on  large  paper 
and  owned  in  New  England,  but  of  course  that  work 
was  done  in  London. 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKERS  271 

The  printing  of  the  earliest  books  was  generally 
poor,  showing  the  work  of  inexperienced  and  unac- 
customed hands ;  but  the  paper  was  good,  sometimes 
of  fine  quality,  and  always  strong.  The  type  was 
fairly  good  and  clear  until  Bevolutionary  times, 
when  paper,  ink,  and  type,  being  made  by  new  work- 
men out  of  the  poorest  materials,  were  bad  beyond 
belief,  producing,  in  fact,  an  almost  unreadable  page. 
Throughout  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  books  printed  in  New  England  compared  favor- 
ably with  the  ones  imported  from  England  at  that 
date,  and  in  the  special  case  of  the  "  Poetical  Obla- 
tion " — a  fine  quarto,  offered  by  Harvard  College  to 
George  III.  on  his  accession  to  the  throne,  the  typog- 
raphy is  exquisite.  For  the  early  binding  but  one 
word  can  be  said — that  of  praise.  All  these  old  books 
had  Charles  Lamb's  desideratum  of  a  volume,  were 
"  strong  backed  and  neat  bound."  Well  dressed  was 
the  morocco,  the  leather,  the  vellum,  parchment,  or 
basil,  firmly  was  it  glued  in  place,  well-sewed  were 
the  leaves — loudly  can  we  sing  the  goodness  and  true 
worth  of  colonial  bookbinding. 

In  many  New  England  libraries  and  collections  may 
be  seen  specimens  of  colonial  printing  and  binding  ; 
the  library  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  is 
particularly  rich  in  such  ancient  treasures.  Some  of 
the  books  from  Cotton  Mather's  library  may  there  be 
found,  that  library  which  Dimton  called  the  glory  of 
New  England,  and  which  he  said  was  the  largest  pri- 
vately owned  collection  of  books  that  he  had  ever  seen  ; 
but  many  of  them  were  burned  in  the  sacking  of  Bos- 


272  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

ton  by  the  British.  It  consisted  of  over  seven  thou- 
sand printed  volumes  and  many  manuscripts,  and  its 
estimated  value  was  £8,000.  The  majority  of  these 
volumes  was  naturally  upon  divinity. 

We  can  also  form  an  idea  of  a  New  England  library 
at  a  somewhat  earlier  date,  for  the  list  of  books  in 
Elder  Brewster's  library  has  been  preserved.  They 
numbered  four  hundred.  Of  these  books,  sixty-two 
were  in  Latin  and  three  hundred  in  English.  There 
were  forty-eight  folios  and  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  octavos.  This  was  quite  a  bulky  and  heavy  li- 
brary for  transportation  to  and  through  that  new 
country.  All  were  not  imported  at  one  time,  as  the 
succession  of  dates  shows.  Brewster  purchased  from 
time  to  time  the  best  books  brought  out  in  England 
on  subjects  which  interested  him,  until  it  was  really 
a  rich  exegetical  collection,  and  may  possibly  have 
been  used  as  a  circulating  one.  Nearly  all  the  num- 
ber were  religious,  theological,  or  historical  books ; 
fourteen  were  in  rhyme.  Among  the  poems  were  "  A 
Turncoat  of  the  Times,"  Spenser's  "  Prosopopeia," 
"  The  Scyrge  of  Drunkenness,"  a  "  Description  of  a 
Good  Wife,"  the  ballad  of  "  The  Maunding  Soldier," 
and  Wither's  works.  One  might  have  been  a  tragedy, 
*'  Messalina,"  but  there  were  no  other  dramatic  works. 

Other  benefactors  of  booksellers  had  good  libraries. 
Parson  Hooker  left  behind  him  £300  worth  of  books 
in  an  estate  of  £1,336.  Parson  Wareham  had  £82 
worth  in  an  estate  of  £1,200.  Eev.  Ebenezer  Pem- 
berton  left,  in  1717,  books  which  made  one  thousand 
lots  in  an  auction,  for  which  the  first  book  catalogue 


BOOKS  AND  BOOK-MAKERS  273 

ever  compiled  in  New  England  was  printed.  Even 
by  1723  the  library  of  Harvard  College  contained 
none  of  the  works  of  Addison,  Bolingbroke,  Young, 
Swift,  Prior,  Steele,  Dryden,  or  Pope.  In  1734,  the 
catalogue  of  T.  Cox,  a  prominent  Boston  bookseller, 
did  not  contain  the  "  Spectator "  nor  the  works  of 
Shakespeare  or  Milton.  The  literary  revival  of  the 
time  of  Queen  Anne  was  evidently  but  little  felt  in 
New  England  during  its  inception.  The  facile  and 
constant  quotation  from  the  ancient  classics  show 
how  constantly  and  thoroughly  the  latter  were  stud- 
ied. 

Among  early  New  England  publications  we  must 
not  fail  to  speak  of  the  omnipresent  almanac.  Ere 
there  was  a  New  England  Psalm-Book  there  was  a  New 
England  Almanac,  and  succeeding  years  brought  new 
ones  forth  in  flocks.  Though  Charles  Lamb  included 
almanacs  in  his  catalogue  of  "books  which  are  no 
books,"  and  the  founder  of  the  Bodleian  Library 
would  not  admit  that  they  were  books  and  excluded 
them  from  the  shelves  of  his  library,  when  New  Eng- 
land philomaths  and  philodespots  numbered  such 
honored  names  as  Mather,  Dudley,  Sewall,  Chauncey, 
Brattle,  Ames,  and  Holyoke,  New  England  Puritans 
must  have  deemed  almanacs  to  be  books,  and  so  do 
we.  In  many  a  colonial  household  where  the  Bible 
and  psalm-book  formed  the  sole  standing  library,  the 
almanac  was  the  only  annual  book-comer  that  crossed 
the  threshold  and  lodged  under  the  roof-tree.  On 
a  nail  by  the  side  of  the  great  fireplace  hung  proudly 
and  prominently  the  Family  Almanac,  the  Ephemeris. 
18 


374  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

This  Family  Almanac  was  a  guide,  counsellor,  and 
friend;  a  magazine,  cyclopaedia,  and  jest-book;  was 
even  a  spelling-book.  It  was  consulted  by  every 
member  of  the  household  on  every  subject,  save  pos- 
sibly religion — for  that  they  had  the  best  of  all  books. 
The  planters  learned  from  it  meteorological,  astro- 
nomical, thaumaturgical,  botanical,  and  agricultural 
facts — or  rather  what  the  editor  stated  as  facts.  Social 
customs  and  peculiarities  and  ethics  were  also  touched 
upon  in  a  manner  suited  to  the  requirements  and  ca- 
pacity of  the  reader ;  medical  and  hygienic  advice 
were  given  for  man  and  beast,  ending  with  the  quaint 
warning  to  use  before  and  after  taking  that  unfash- 
ionable medicine,  prayer.  Wit,  history,  romance, 
poetry,  all  contributed  to  the  almanac.  The  printer 
turned  an  extra  penny  by  advertising  various  articles 
that  he  had  for  sale,  from  negro  slaves  to  garden 
seeds.  So,  in  addition  to  what  the  original  readers 
learned,  we  now  find  an  almanac  a  most  suggestive 
record  of  the  olden  times. 

As  with  many  colonial  books,  the  most  attractive 
part  of  an  almanac  is  not  always  the  printed  contents, 
but  the  interlined  comments  of  the  original  owner. 
He  kept  frequently  an  account  of  his  scanty  and 
sparse  purchases  ;  from  them  we  gain  a  knowledge  of 
the  price  of  commodities  in  his  time.  We  learn  also 
upon  how  little  a  New  England  planter  could  live, 
how  little  money  he  spent.  He  kept  a  record  of  the 
births,  weights,  and  measures  of  his  family ;  he  en- 
tered the  purchase  and  number  of  his  lottery  tickets 
(but  I  never  found  the  proud  and  happy  statement  of 


BOOKS  AND   BOOK-MAKERS  275 

a  lottery  prize).  He  wrote  therein  Greek  verse,  as 
did  John  Cotton.  He  entered  wig-making  and  hair- 
dressing  accounts,  as  did  Thomas  Prince.  He  kept 
the  amount  of  beer  and  cider  he  made  and  drank,  and 
the  sad  statement  of  deaths  in  the  neighborhood; 
such  grim  entries  are  seen  as  these  made  by  old  Ezra 
Stiles :  "  This  day  Ethan  Allen  died  and  went  to 
Hell."  "This  day  died  Joseph  Bellamy  and  went 
to  Heaven,  where  he  can  dictate  and  domineer  no 
longer."  President  Stiles  did  not  foresee  that  his 
great-grandson  would  be  Joseph  Bellamy's  also,  and 
would  plan  a  social  reform  more  vast  in  its  changes 
than  the  really  sensible  scheme  he  thought  out,  of 
"  uniting  and  cementing  his  offspring  by  transfusing 
to  distant  generations  certain  influential  principles," 
and  of  benefiting  the  growing  population  of  the  New 
World  by  carefully  planned  and  wide-spread  mar- 
riages with  virtuous  and  pious  Stileses. 

Of  course  the  almanac-owner  kept  account  of  the 
weather — a  brave  record  through  January  and  Febru- 
ary and  March;  then,  lessening  his  zeal  as  spring- 
planting  began,  the  hard-working  summer  months 
have  clean  pages ;  while  a  remorseful  energy  in  No- 
vember and  December  ofttimes  made  him  renew  in  the 
smoke-dried  almanac  his  crabbed  entries.  Hence 
from  contemporary  evidence  does  old  New  England 
life  seem  all  winter,  all  bitter  cold  and  fierce  rains 
and  harsh  winds ;  yet  there  were  surely  some  warm 
summer  days  and  cheerful  sunshine,  so  smoothly 
serene  as  to  gain  no  record. 

The  relations  between  book-publishers  and  authors, 


276  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

between  book-publisliers  and  the  public,  were  from 
earliest  days  most  friendly.  There  was  much  polite 
exchange  of  compliments ;  the  intelligence  of  the  pub- 
lic was  always  mightily  flattered  and  shown  up  in  a 
very  civil  fashion  in  such  manner  as  this : 

**  A  New  Edition  of  the  really  beautiful  &  sentimental 
Novel  Armine  and  Elvira  Is  this  day  published  price  9d 
sewed  in  blue  paper.  To  the  Ladies  in  particular  and 
others  the  lovers  of  Sentiment  and  Poetick  Numbers 
this  Novel  is  recommended,  to  them  it  will  afford  a  de- 
lightful Repast.     To  others  it  is  not  an  object." 

"  For  the  pleasing  entertainment  of  the  Polite  Part  of 
Mankind  I  have  printed  the  most  beautiful  Poems  of  Mr. 
Stephen  Duck  the  famous  Wiltshire  Poet.  It  is  a  full 
Demonstration  to  me  that  the  People  of  New  England  have 
a  fine  Taste  for  good  Sense  and  polite  Learning  having 
already  sold  1200  of  these  Poems." 

Though  Stephen  Duck  appealed  to  polite  and  lit- 
erate New  Englanders  just  as  he  became  the  rage  in 
old  England,  his  name  is  now  almost  forgotten. 

It  must  have  inclined  the  public  most  favorably  to 
a  book  to  be  told  that  the  volume  is  "  intended  only 
for  the  highly  virtuous  ;  "  that  "  the  glowing  pen  of 
the  author  brought  this  token  into  life  solely  from 
Admiration  of  a  community  fitted  by  amazing  Litelli- 
gence  to  receive  it :  "  that 

"  'Tis  said  with  truth  by  a  secret  but  ingenious  New 
England  minister  that  no  town  is  so  worthy  the  vendue 
of  this  pleasing  book  as  these  polite  gentlemen  and  gen- 
tlewomen to  whom  it  will  be  on  Friday  offered." 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKEKS  277 

Authors,  if  not  authoresses,  were  treated  with  much 
respect  and  encouragement.  Indeed,  they  were 
urged  to  write.  Books  printed  by  subscription  were 
the  rule,  and,  as  an  inducement,  the  names  of  sub- 
scribers were  printed  in  a  list  at  the  end  of  the  book, 
and  an  extra  copy  was  given  for  every  six  numbers 
subscribed  for.  The  "  undertakers  "  did  not  always 
trouble  themselves  to  deliver  the  book  when  printed. 
A  notice  was  posted,  or  printed  in  a  newspaper,  ad- 
vising subscribers  pretty  sharply  that  their  copies 
(which  had  apparently  been  paid  for  in  advance) 
must  be  sent  for  within  a  certain  time  or  the  books 
would  be  "  sold  to  others  desiring."  One  American 
poet,  the  author  of  "  War — An  Heroic  Poem,"  a  work 
which  has  been  lost  to  us,  threatened  to  prosecute  his 
patrons  for  not  taking  his  book.  Sometimes  the 
printer  of  the  book  also  seized  the  opportunity  of  the 
large  circulation  to  drum  up  delinquent  citizens  who 
had  not  paid  him  at  previous  dates  for  news  letters, 
sermons,  funeral  verses,  etc.  One  of  the  first  books 
printed  in  Hartford  was  paid  for  largely  by  a  man 
who  ran  a  woollen  mill  in  the  vicinity.  He  took 
the  convenient  occasion  to  thriftily  forward  his  own 
trade  by  having  printed  and  bound  with  the  poems, 
and  thus  distributing  to  sheep-farmers  and  farm- 
wives  in  the  surrounding  towns,  full  instructions 
about  preparing  the  wool  to  be  sent  to  him. 

Frequently  the  notices  in  the  newspapers  bore,  in 
quaint  wording,  warm  testimony  to  the  popularity  of 
a  book.  "  The  above  book  is  advertised  by  the  desire 
of  numbers  who  have  read  and  admired  it."     "If  to 


278  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

raise  the  soul  to  heights  of  honourable  pride  is  not 
unworthy  so  great  a  mind,  praise  of  this  book  may 
be  given,  though  needless,  since  many  request  it." 
"  Many  curious  gentlemen  formerly  buying  their 
books  in  London  now  wish  to  buy  only  in  New  Eng- 
land where  so  acute  a  manner  of  composure  is  found." 
"  For  the  polite  and  inquisitive  part  of  Mankind  in 
New  England  these  poetick  fancies  are  highly  con- 
formed as  many  residents  testify  by  their  frequent 
perusal  and  approval." 

Public  encouragement  to  aspiring  authors  was  not 
lacking;  this  adveiiisement  in  the  Neio  England 
Weekly  Journal  of  March,  1728,  is  indeed  delight- 
ful: 

"There  is  now  preparing  for  the  Press,  and  may  upon 
Suitable  Encouragement  be  communicated  to  the  Pub- 
lick,  a  Miscellany  of  Poems  of  Severall  Hands  and  upon 
severall  occasions  some  of  which  have  already  been  Pub- 
lished and  received  the  Approbation  of  the  best  Judges 
with  many  more  very  late  performances  of  equal  if  not 
superior  Beauty  which  have  never  yet  seen  the  Light ;  if 
therefore  any  Ingenious  Gentlemen  are  disposed  to  con- 
tribute towards  the  erecting  of  a  Poetickal  Monument  for 
the  Honour  of  This  Country  Either  by  their  Generous 
Subscriptions  or  Composures,  they  are  desired  to  convey 
tliem  to  Mr.  Daniel  Henchman  or  the  Publisher  of  this 
Paper  by  whom  they  will  be  received  with  Candour  and 
Thankfulness." 

Just  fancy  the  effect  of  a  similar  advertisement  in  a 
prominent  newspaper  of  to-day !     How  composures 


BOOKS   AND   BOOK-MAKERS  279 

would  flow  in  from  the  ingenious  gentlemen  who  love 
to  see  themselves  in  print !  What  a  poetical  monu- 
ment could  be  reared — to  the  very  sky !  I  have  never 
seen  in  any  colonial  newspaper  any  subsequent  refer- 
ences to  this  proposed  collection  or  miscellany  of 
composures,  and  I  know  of  no  book  that  was  pub- 
lished at  that  time  which  could  answer  the  descrip- 
tion, so  I  suspect  the  well-laid  plan  came  to  naught. 
The  specimens  of  local  and  ephemeral  poetry  that 
were  printed  in  the  colonial  press  in  succeeding  years 
make  it  easy  to  comprehend  the  failure  of  the  proj- 
ect :  the  villanously  rhymed  effusions  fairly  im- 
posthumate  all  the  ribald  vulgarity  of  the  times ; 
coarseness  and  dulness  of  subject  and  thought  being 
rivalled  only  by  the  super-coarseness  of  the  verbiage. 
I  do  not  say  that  the  newspapers  provoked  these 
stupid  rhymes,  which  are  about  as  much  poetry  as  is 
a  game  of  crambo  ;  but  I  do  not  find  them  until 
*' newspaper-time,"  and  fear  the  extra  circulation 
through  the  weekly  press  may  be  held  partly  respon- 
sible. 

A  book  called  "  A  Collection  of  Poems  by  Several 
Hands  "  apparently  was  gathered  by  methods  similar 
to  the  one  shown  by  the  advertisement  just  quoted. 
It  was  printed  in  1744,  and  was  a  puerile  and  banal 
collection  containing  but  few  good  verses,  and  was 
apparently  made  expressly  to  show  off  the  literary 
accomplishments  of  Mather  Byles,  who  was  what 
Carlyle  would  call  an  intellectual  dapperling. 

Book- auctions,  held  first  in  England  in  1676, 
formed  one  of  the  rare  diversions  in  the  provinces, 


280  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  were  apparently  largely  attended  by  "sentimen- 
talists," as  one  book-dealer  called  book-buyers.  The 
business  of  book-auctioneering  was  called,  in  the  bom- 
bastic language  of  the  times,  "  the  sublimest  Auxil- 
iary which  Science  Commerce  and  Arts  either  has  or 
perhaps  ever  will  possess,"  while  the  bookseller  was 
called  "  Provedore  to  the  Sentimentalists  and  Pro- 
fessor of  Book  Auctioneering."  These  sales  or  ven- 
dues were  frequently  held  at  taverns. 

At  a  very  early  day  intelligent  and  progressive 
Bostonians  established  a  public  library.  By  the  year 
1673  bequests  had  been  made  to  such  an  institution, 
and  consignments  deemed  suitable  for  it  had  been 
sent  to  Boston  by  London  booksellers.  All  these 
books  were  properly  sober  and  pious.  The  Prince 
library,  that  first  large  American  book  collection, 
which  was  conceived  and  started  by  Thomas  Prince 
in  1703,  was  nobly  planned  and  nobly  carried  out, 
and  deserved  more  gratitude  and  more  care  than  it 
received  at  modern  hands. 

But  many  towns  had  no  public  library,  hence  much 
friendly  exchange  and  lending  of  books  took  place  be- 
tween book-owners  and  neighbors,  sometimes  appar- 
ently without  the  owner's  consent  or  knowledge.  The 
newspapers,  among  their  sparse  advertisements,  have 
many  such  as  this  simply  naive  one  in  the  Boston 
News  Letter  of  July  7,  1712 : 

"  A  certain  Person  having  lent  two  Books  viz ;  Rush- 
worths  Collections  &  Fullers  Holy  War  &  forgotten  unto 
whom  ;  These  are  desiring  the  Borrower  to  be  so  kind  as 
to  return  said  Books  unto  Owner.'*' 


BOOKS   AND  BOOK-MAKERS  281 

Or  this   sarcastic   request  in    the    Connecticut   Covr 
rant, 

"The  gentleman  who  took  the  second  volume  of 
Bacons  Abridgment  from  Mr.  David  Balls  bedroom  on 
the  18th  of  November  would  do  well  to  return  it  to  the 
owner  whose  name  he  will  find  on  the  15th  Page.  If  he 
choose  rather  to  keep  it  the  owner  wishes  him  to  call  and 
take  the  rest  of  the  set." 

Another  Connecticut  man  is  meekly  asked  to  "  re- 
turn the  3rd  Vol  ot  Don  Quixote  &  take  the  4th 
instead  if  he  chuse." 

Connecticut  folk  seemed  to  be  particularly  given 
to  this  slipshod  fashion  of  promiscuous  and  unli- 
censed book-bon-owing,  if  we  can  trust  the  apparent 
proof  given  by  Connecticut  newspapers  in  their  many 
advertisements  of  lost  books.  In  some  notices  it  is 
darkly  hinted  that  "  specifications  of  books  long  lent 
have  been  given  "  (to  the  sheriff  perhaps) ;  and  again, 
a  meek  suggestion  that  the  owner  wishes  to  read  a 
long  missing  volume  and  would  be  grateful  for  an  op- 
portunity to  do  so.  One  ungallant  soul  advertised 
for  "  the  she-person  that  borrowed  Mr.  Thos.  Browns 
Works  from  a  gentleman  she  is  well  acquainted 
with." 

There  was  not  the  redeeming  excuse  for  non-return 
sometimes  given  by  like  "desuming  deadheads" 
nowadays,  that  the  owner's  name  had  been  forgotten, 
for  the  inscription  "Perley  Morse,  His  Book,"  or 
"  Catey  Bradford,  Her  Book,"  or  whatever  the  name 
might  be,  was  quickly  and  repeatedly  written  by 


282  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

each  colonial  owner  as  soon  as  the  book  was  ac- 
quired. 

Frequently  also  the  dates  and  places  of  residence 
appear.  Even  the  very  dates  of  ownership  and  the 
quaint  old  names  are  interesting.  Bathsheba  Spald- 
ing, Noca  Emmons,  Elam  Noyes,  Titherming  Layton, 
Engrossed  Bump,  Sally  Box,  Tilly  Minching,  Zeru- 
shaddi  Key,  Comfort  Vine — these  are  a  few  of  the 
odd  signatures  I  have  found  in  old  books. 

Beaders  also  had  a  pleasant  habit  of  leaving  a  sign- 
manual  on  the  last  page  of  a  book,  thus  :  "  Timothy 
Pitkin  perlegit  A.D.  1765,"  "  Cotton  Smith  perlegit 
1740."  A  clear-speaking  lesson  are  such  records  to 
this  generation — a  lesson  of  patience  and  diligence. 
How  we  venerate,  with  what  awe  we  regard  the  name 
of  Timothy  Pitkin,  and  know  that  he  lived  to  read 
through  that  vast  folio — the  first  ever  printed  in 
America — the  "  Complete  Body  of  Divinity,"  a  folio 
of  over  nine  hundred  double -columned,  compactly 
printed  pages !  And  yet,  why  should  not  Timothy 
Pitkin  live  through  reading  it  when  Samuel  Willard 
lived  through  writing  it?  Entries  of  dates  in  old 
Bibles  frequently  show  that  those  sainted  old  Chris- 
tians had  read  entirely  through  that  holy  book  ten 
times  in  regular  order. 

The  handwriting  in  all  these  ancient  books  is  very 
different  from  our  modern  penmanship,  invariably 
bearing  an  appearance  not  exactly  of  much  labor,  but 
of  much  care,  as  if  the  writer  did  not  use  a  pen  every 
day — did  not  become  too  familiar  with  that  weighty 
implement,  and  hence  had  a  vast  respect  for  it  when 


BOOKS  AND  BOOK-MAKERS  283 

he  did  take  it  in  hand.  Every  t  is  crossed,  every  i  is 
dotted,  every  a  and  o  perfectly  rounded,  every  tail  of 
every  g  and  y  and  z  is  precisely  twisted  in  colonial 
script.  I  think  the  very  trouble  and  preparation  in- 
cident to  writing  conduced  to  the  finish  and  elegance 
of  the  penmanship.  No  stylographic  pens  were  used 
in  those  days,  but  instead,  a  carefully  prepared  quill ; 
and  the  ink  was  made  of  ink-cake  or  ink-powder  dis- 
solved in  water;  or,  more  troublesome  still,  home- 
made ink,  tediously  prepared  with  nutgalls,  walnut 
or  swamp  maple  bark,  or  iron  filings  steeped  in  vine- 
gar and  water,  or  copperas. 

Special  pains  were  taken  in  WTiting  a  name  in  a 
book.  Penmanship  was  almost  a  fine  art  in  colonial 
days,  the  one  indispensable  accomplishment  of  a 
school  teacher ;  and  he  was  often  hired  to  exercise  it 
in  writing  a  name  "  perspicuously "  in  a  book. 
Sometimes  the  owner's  name  is  seen  drawn  with 
much  care  in  a  little  wreath  or  circle  of  ornamenta- 
tion. This  may  be  what  Judge  Sewall  refers  to  with 
so  much  pride  when  he  speaks  of  "  writing  a  name  " 
in  a  gift-book,  or  it  may  be  what  was  known  as 
"  conceits  "  or  "  fine  knotting." 

The  colonists  had  a  very  reprehensible  habit,  which 
(save  for  the  pains  taken  in  writing)  might  be  called 
book-scribbling.  Rude  rhymes  and  sentiments  are 
often  found  with  the  past  owner's  name,  and  form  a 
title-page  lore  which,  ill-spelt  and  simple  as  the 
verses  are,  have  an  interest  to  the  antiquary  of  which 
the  writer  never  dreamed.     They  consist  chiefly  of 


284  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

adjurations  to  honesty,  specially  with  regard  to  the 
special  volume  thus  inscribed : 

"  Steal  not  this  book  my  honest  friend, 
For  fear  the  gallows  will  be  your  End." 

"  If  you  dare  to  steal  this  Book 
The  Devil  will  catch  you  on  his  Hook.*' 

This  was  accompanied  by  the  outline  of  a  very 
spirited  "personal  devil"  with  a  pitchfork  and  an 
enormous  gridiron. 

Still  another  appealed  to  terrors : 

**  This  is  Hanah  Moxon  Her  book 
You  may  just  within  it  Look 
You  had  better  not  do  more 
For  old  black  Satan's  at  the  Door 
And  will  snatch  at  stealing  hands 
Look  behind  you  I    There  He  Stands." 

This  had  a  tail-piece  of  an  open  door  with  a  very 
black  forked  tail  thrust  out  of  it. 

In  a  leather-bound  Bible  was  seen  this  rhyme  : 

"  Evert  Jonson  His  book 
God  Give  him  Gi'ase  tliair  in  to  look 
not  only  to  looke  but  to  understand 
that  Larning  is  better  than  Hous  or  Land 
When  Land  is  Gon  &  Gold  is  spent 
then  laming  is  most  Axelant 
When  I  am  dead  &  Eotton 
If  this  you  see  Kemember  me 
Though  others  is  forgotten." 

Different  portions  of  this  script  have  been  seen  in 
many  books. 


BOOKS   AND  BOOK-MAKEKS  286 

Four  rhymes  seem  to  be  specially  the  property  of 
schoolboys,  being  found  in  Accidences,  Spellers, 
"  Logick"  Primers,  and  other  school-books,  down  even 
to  the  present  day. 

**  This  book  is  one  thing,  My  fist's  another, 
K  you  touch  the  one  thing,  You'll  feel  the  other." 

"  Hie  liber  est  meus 
And  that  I  will  show 
Si  aliquis  capit 
I'll  give  him  a  blow." 

*'  This  book  is  mine 
By  Law  Divine 

And  if  it  runs  astray 
I'll  call  you  kind 
My  desk  to  find 

And  put  it  safe  away." 

**  Hie  liber  est  meus  Deny  it  who  can 
Zenas  Graves  Junior  An  honest  man." 

There  also  appears  a  practical  warning  which  may 
be  read  with  attention  and  profit  by  the  public  now 
a  days : 

**  If  thou  art  borrowed  by  a  friend 
Right  welcome  shall  he  be 
To  read,  to  study,  not  to  lend 
But  to  return  to  me. 

**  Not  that  imparted  knowledge  doth 
Diminish  Learnings  Store 
But  books  I  find  if  often  lent 
Return  to  me  no  more." 


286  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

**Eead  Slowly — Pause  Frequentlj/ — Think  Seriously — Finger 
Lightly — Keep  Cleanly — Return  Duly — with  the  Cornei's  of  the 
Leaves  Not  Turned  Down." 

The  fashion  of  using  book-plates  was  by  no  means 
so  general  among  New  England  Puritans  as  among 
rich  Virginians  and  New  Yorkers  and  Pennsylvanian 
Quakers.  Mr.  Lichtenstein,  writing  in  the  New  Eng- 
land Historical  and  Genealogical  Register  in  1886, 
says  he  has  seen  no  New  England  book-plates  of 
earlier  date  than  1735.  At  later  dates  the  Holyokes, 
Dudleys,  Boylstons,  and  Phillips,  all  used  book- 
plates. The  plates  most  familiar  to  students  in  old 
libraries  in  New  England  are  those  of  the  Yaughans 
and  of  Isaiah  Thomas. 

Another,  a  living  interest  is  found  in  these  old, 
dusty,  leather-bound  volumes,  which  is  not  in  the 
inscriptions  and  not,  alas,  in  the  printed  words. 
They  are  the  chosen  home  of  a  race  of  pigmy  spider- 
lings  who  love  musty  theology  with  an  affection  found 
in  no  one  else  nowadays.  In  these  dingy  homes 
they  live  and  rear  their  hideous  little  progeny  :  for 
in  the  cold  light  of  a  microscope  these  tiny  brown 
book-dwellers  are  not  beautiful ;  they  are  flat,  crab- 
like, goggle-eyed,  hairy ;  and  they  zigzag  across  the 
page  on  their  ugly  crooked  legs  in  a  sprawling,  drunk- 
en fashion.  They  do  not  eat  the  books  ;  they  live  ap- 
parently on  air ;  yet  if  you  crush  them  between  the 
pages  they  leave  a  stain  of  vivid  scarlet  to  reproach 
you  in  future  readings  for  your  needless  cruelty.  I 
cannot  kill  them  ;  though  flaming  is  their  blood's  re- 
buke, it  is  aristocratically  as  well  as   theologically 


BOOKS   AND  BOOK-MAKERS  287 

blue.  In  their  veins  runs  the  ichor — arachnidian 
though  it  be — that  came  over  in  the  Mayflower ;  yes, 
doubly  honored,  came  over  in  the  special  stateroom 
of  an  Ainsworth's  Psalm-Book  or  a  Genevan  Bible. 
No  degrading  alliances,  no  admixtures  through  for- 
eign emigration,  have  crossed  that  pure  inbred  strain ; 
my  book-spiders  are  of  real  Pilgrim  stock — they  are 
true  New  England  Brahmins. 

Any  one  who  turns  over  with  attention  the  books 
of  an  old  New  England  library  must  be  struck  with  a 
sense  of  the  affection  with  which  these  books  have 
been  treasured,  the  care  with  which  they  have  been 
read,  and,  in  case  of  accident,  with  which  they  have 
been  repaired.  One  psalm-book,  nibbled  by  mice,  has 
had  every  page  neatly  mended  by  the  insertion  of 
thin  sheets  of  paper  to  replace  the  lost  bits ;  and  some 
painstaking  and  pious  New  Englander,  with  a  pen  and 
skill  worthy  the  illuminating  monks  of  another  faith, 
has  minutely  printed  the  missing  letters  on  both 
sides  of  the  inserted  slip  in  a  text  no  larger  than  the 
surrounding  print.  Another  book,  a  Bible,  burnt  in 
round  holes  by  a  slow-burning  coal  from  the  pipe  of 
a  sleepy  reader,  has  been  mended  in  the  same  careful 
manner.  1  have  seen  Bibles  that  have  been  reaxi 
and  turned  over  till  the  margins  of  the  pages  at  the 
lower  corner  and  outer  edge  were  worn  off  down  to 
the  print  by  loving  daily  use.  In  one  such  the  mar- 
gins had  been  neatly  replaced  by  pasted  slips  of  pa- 
per. In  more  than  one  book  I  have  found  a  minutely 
written  home-made  index  on  the  blank  pages  at  the 
end  of  the  volume,  showing  a  personal  interest  and 


288  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

love  for  a  book  which  can  hardly  be  equalled.  Care- 
ful notes  and  references  and  postils  also  show  a  pa- 
tient and  appreciative  perusal. 

Though  books  were  so  closely  cherished,  so  seem- 
ly bekept  in  colonial  days,  they  were  subject  to  one 
indignity  with  which  now  they  are  unmenaced  and 
undegraded — they  were  sometimes  sentenced  to  be 
burned  by  the  public  hangman.  In  1654  the  writ- 
ings of  John  Reeves  and  Ludowick  Muggleton,  who 
set  up  to  be  prophets,  were  burned  by  that  ab- 
horred public  functionary  in  Boston  market-place ; 
and  two  years  later  Quaker  books  were  similarly  de- 
stroyed. William  Pyncheon's  book  was  burned,  in 
1650,  in  Boston  Market.  In  1707  a  "libel  on  the 
Governor  "  was  hanged  by  the  hangman.  In  1754  a 
pamphlet  called  "  The  Monster  of  Monsters,"  a  sharp 
political  criticism  on  the  Massachusetts  Court,  was 
thus  burned  in  King  Street,  Boston.  From  the  Con- 
necticut Gazette  of  November  29th,  1755,  we  learn  that 
another  offending  publication  was  sentenced  to  be 
"  publickly  whipt  according  to  Moses  Law  with  40 
stripes  save  one,  then  Burnt.'*  How  a  true  book- 
lover  winces  at  the  thought  of  the  public  hangman 
placing  his  blood-stained  hand  on  any  book,  no  mat- 
ter how  much  a  "  monster." 


xn 

"AETIFICES   OF  HANDSOMENESS" 

Fkom  the  earliest  days  the  Puritan  colonists  fought 
stoutly,  for  the  sake  of  St.  Paul,  against  long  hair. 
They  proved  themselves  worthy  the  opprobrious 
name  of  Eoundhead.  Endicott's  first  act  was  to 
institute  a  solemn  and  insistent  association  against 
long  hair.  This  wearing  of  long  locks  was  one  of  the 
existing  evils,  a  wile  of  the  devil,  which  bade  fair  to 
creep  into  New  England,  and  in  its  incipiency  was 
proceeded  against  by  the  General  Court,  "  that  the 
men  might  not  wear  long  hair  like  women's  hair.'* 
\  The  ministers  preached  bitterly  and  incessantly 
^  against  the  fashion  ;  the  Apostle  Eliot,  Parson  Stod- 
dard, Parson  Eogers,  President  Chauncey,  President 
Wigglesworth,  all  launched  burning  invective  and 
skilful  Biblical  argument  against  the  long-growing 
locks — "  the  disguisement  of  long  Ruffianly  hair  "  (or 
Russianly — whichever  it  may  be).  It  was  derisively 
suggested  that  long  nails  like  Nebuchadnezzar's 
would  next  be  in  fashion.  Men  under  sentence  for 
offences  were  offered  release  from  punishment  if  they 
would  "cut  off  their  long  hair  into  a  civil  frame." 
Exact  rules  were  given  from  the  pulpit  as  to  the  prop- 
19 


290  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

erly  Puritan  length — that  the  hair  should  not  lie  over 
_  the  neck,  the  band,  or  the  doublet  collar ;  in  the  winter 
it  might  be  suffered  to  grow  a  little  below  the  ear  for 
warmth.  Personal  pride  and  dignity  were  appealed 
to,  that  no  Christian  gentleman  would  wish  to  look 
like  *' every  Ruffian,  every  wild-Irish,  every  hang-man, 
every  varlet  and  vagabond."  By  Sewall's  time,  how- 
ever, Puritan  though  he  were,  we  see  his  white  locks 
flowing  long  over  his  doublet  collar,  and  forming  a 
fitting  frame  to  his  serene,  benignant  countenance. 

Puritan  w^oman  also  were  not  above  reproach  in 
regard  to  the  fashion  of  extravagant  hair-dressing; 
•  they  also  "showed  the  vile  note  of  impudency." 
One  parson  thus  severely  addressed  them  from  the 
pulpit :  "  The  special  sin  of  woman  is  pride  and 
haughtiness,  and  that  because  they  are  generally  more 
ignorant  and  worthless,"  and  he  added  that  this 
feminine  pride  vented  itself  in  gesture,  hair,  behavior, 
and  apparel.  I  fear  all  this  was  true,  for  the  Court 
also  complained  of  my  ignorant  and  worthless  sex 
for  "  cutting  and  curling  and  laying  out  of  the  hair, 
especially  among  the  younger  sort."  Increase  Mather 
gave  them  this  thrust  in  his  sermon  on  the  comet,  in 
1683  :  "  Will  not  the  haughty  daughters  of  Zion  refrain 
1  their  pride  in  apparell  ?  Will  they  lay  out  their  hair, 
;  and  wear  their  false  locks,  their  borders,  and  towers 
like  comets  about  their  heads  ?  "  And  they  were 
called  "  Apes  of  Fancy,  friziling  and  curlying  of  their 
hayr." 

I  think  the  sober  and  decorous  women  settlers  must 
have  worn  their  hair  cut  straight  across  the  forehead, 


*' ARTIFICES   OF  HANDSOMENESS"  291 

like  our  modem  "  bangs ; "  for  Higginson,  writing  of 
the  Indians  in  1692,  says :  "  Their  hair  is  generally 
black  and  cut  before  like  our  gentlewomen."  The 
false  locks  denounced  by  Mather  were  doubtless  "  a 
pair  of  Perukes  which  are  pretty  "  of  Pepys's  time, 
about  1656 ;  or  the  "  heart  breakers  "  worn  in  1670, 
which  set  out  like  butterfly-wings  over  the  ears,  and 
which  were  described  thus :  "  False  locks  set  on  wyers 
to  make  them  stand  at  a  distance  from  the  head." 

From  a  letter  written  by  KnoUys  to  Cecil  we  learn 
that  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  wore  these  perukes.  He 
says : 

"Mary  Seaton  among  other  pretty  devices  yesterday 
and  this  day,  she  did  set  such  a  curled  hair  upon  the 
Queen  that  was  said  to  be  a  Peruke,  that  showed  very 
delicately,  and  every  other  day  she  hath  a  new  device  of 
head  dressing  without  any  cost,  and  yet  setteth  forth  a 
woman  gaylie  well." 

The  "  towers  like  comets  "  were  doubtless  com- 
modes, which  were  in  high  fashion  in  Europe  at  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  centuiy  until  about  the 
year  1711,  though  I  have  never  found  that  the  word 
commode  was  used  in  America.  These  commodes 
were  enormously  high  frames  of  wire  covered  with 
thin  silk,  or  plaitings  of  muslin  or  lace,  or  frills  of 
ribbon — and  sadly  belied  their  name. 

A  simpler  form  of  hair-dressing  succeeded  the 
commode ;  portraits  painted  during  the  following 
half-century,  such  as  those  of  Copley,  Smibert,  and 
Blackburn,  show  an  elegant  and  graceful  form   of 


292  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

coiifure,  the  hair  brushed  back  and  raised  slightly 
from  the  forehead,  and  sometimes  curled  loosely  be- 
hind the  ears.  At  a  later  date  the  curls  were  almost 
universally  surmounted  by  a  lace  cap.  Pomatum 
began  to  be  used  by  the  middle  of  the  century.  In 
the  Boston  Neivs  Letter  of  1768,  we  read  of  *'  Black 
White  and  Yellow  Pomatum  from  six  Coppers  to  Two 
Shillings  per  Eoll."  The  hair  was  frequently  pow- 
dered. Hair-dressers  sold  powdering  puffs  and 
powdering  bags  and  powdering  machines,  and  a 
dozen  different  varieties  of  hair-powder — brown, 
marechal,  scented,  plain,  and  blue.  By  Bevolution- 
ary  times  a  new  tower,  or  "  talematongue,"  had 
arisen ;  the  front  hair  was  pulled  up  over  a  stuffed 
cushion  or  roll,  and  mixed  with  powder  and  grease ; 
the  back  hair  was  strained  up  in  loops  or  short  curls, 
surrounded  and  surmounted  with  ribbons,  pompons, 
aigrettes,  jewels,  gauze,  and  flowers  and  feathers, 
till  the  structure  was  half  a  yard  in  height.  This 
fashion  was  much  admired  by  some ;  a  young  lover 
of  the  day  wrote  thus  sentimentally  of  a  fair  Hart- 
ford girl :  "  Her  hair  covered  her  cushion  as  a  plate 
of  the  most  beautiful  enamel  frosted  with  silver."  A 
Revolutionary  soldier  wrote  a  poem,  however,  which 
regarded  from  a  different  point  of  view  this  elaborate 
headgear  in  such  a  time  of  national  depression. 
His  rhymes  began  thus  : 

**  Ladies  you  had  better  leave  off  your  high  rolls 
Lest  by  extravagance  you  lose  your  poor  souls 
Then  haul  out  the  wool,  and  likewise  the  tow 
'Twill  clothe  our  whole  army  we  very  well  know." 


*' ARTIFICES   OF  HANDSOMENESS"  293 

The  *'  Dress-a-la-Independance  "  was  a  style  of  hair- 
dressing  with  thirteen  curls  at  the  neck,  thus  to  honor 
the  thirteen  new  States. 

In  the  year  1771  Anna  Green  Winslow  wrote  in 
her  diary  an  account  of  one  of  these  elaborate  hair- 
dressings  which  she  then  saw.  She  ends  her  descrip- 
tion thus : 

"  How  long  she  was  under  his  opperation  I  know  not.  I 
saw  him  twist  &  tug  &  pick  &  cut  off  whole  locks  of  gray 
hair  at  a  sUce,  the  lady  telling  him  he  would  have  no  hair 
to  dress  next  time,  for  a  space  of  an  hour  aud  a  half, 
when  I  left  them  he  seeming  not  to  be  near  done." 

She  also  gives  a  most  sprightly  account  of  the 
manufacture  of  a  roll  for  her  own  hair  : 

"  I  had  my  Heddus  roll  on.  Aunt  Storer  said  it  ought 
to  be  made  less,  Aunt  Deming  said  it  ought  not  to  be 
made  at  all.  It  makes  my  head  ach  and  burn  and  itch  like 
anything  Mama.  This  famous  Roll  is  not  made  wholly  of 
a  Red-Cow  Tail  but  is  a  mixture  of  that  &  horsehair  very 
coarse  &  a  little  human  hair  of  a  yellow  hue  that  I  sup- 
pose was  taken  out  of  the  back  part  of  an  old  wig.  But 
D.  (the  barber)  made  it,  all  carded  together  and  twisted 
up.  When  it  first  came  home,  Aunt  put  it  on,  and  ray 
new  cap  upon  it ;  she  then  took  up  her  apron  and  meas- 
ured me  &  from  the  roots  of  my  hair  on  my  forehead  to 
the  top  of  my  notions  I  measured  above  an  inch  longer 
than  I  did  downward  from  the  roots  of  my  hair  to  the 
end  of  my  chin.  Nothing  renders  a  young  person  more, 
amiable  than  Virtue  and  Modest}^  without  the  help  of 
fals  hair,  Red-Cow  tail  or  D.  the  barber." 


294  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

The  Boston  Gazette  had,  in  1771,  a  ludicrous  de- 
scription of  an  accident  to  a  young  woman  in  the 
streets  of  that  town.  In  an  infaust  moment  she  was 
thrown  down  by  a  runaway,  and  her  tower  received 
serious  damage.  It  burst  its  thin  outer  wall  of  nat- 
ural hair,  and  disgorged  cotton  and  wool  and  tow 
stuffing,  false  hair,  loops  of  ribbon  and  gauze.  Ill- 
bred  boys  kicked  off  portions  of  the  various  excres- 
cences, and  the  tower- wearer  was  jeered  at  until  she 
was  glad  to  escape  with  her  own  few  natural  locks. 

A  New  England  clergyman — Manasseh  Cutler — ■ 
wrote  thus  of  the  head-dress  of  Mrs.  General  Knox 
in  1787  : 

*'Her  hair  in  front  is  craped  at  least  a  foot  high  much 
in  the  form  of  a  churn  bottom  upward  and  topped  off 
with  a  wh*e  skeleton  in  the  same  form  covered  with  black 
gauze  which  hangs  in  streamers  down  her  back.  Her  hair 
behind  is  in  a  large  braid  turned  up  and  confined  with  a 
monstrous  large  crooked  comb.  She  reminded  me  of  the 
monstrous  cap  worn  by  the  Marquis  of  La  Fayettes  valet, 
commonly  called  on  this  account  the  Marquises  devil." 

Hair  so  elaborately  arranged  could  not  be  dressed 
daily.  Once  a  week  was  frequently  thought  suffi- 
cient ;  and  some  very  disgusting  accounts  are  given 
of  methods  to  dress  the  hair  so  it  would  "  keep  safely  " 
for  a  month.  The  Abbe  Eobin  wrote  of  New  England 
women  in  1781 : 

**  The  hair  of  the  head  is  raised  and  supported  upon 
cushions  to  an  extravagant  height  somewhat  resembling 


'*AKTIFICES  OF  HANDSOMENESS"  295 

the  manner  in  which  the  French  ladies  wore  their  hair 
some  years  ago.  Instead  of  powdering  they  often  wash 
the  head,  which  answers  the  purpose  well  enough  as  their 
own  hair  is  commonly  of  an  agreeable  light  color,  but  the 
more  fashionable  among  them  begin  to  adopt  the  Euro- 
pean fashion  of  setting  off  the  head  to  the  best  advan- 
tage." 

The  fashion  of  the  roll  was  of  much  importance, 
and  various  shaped  rolls  were  advertised ;  we  find  one 
of  "  a  modish  new  roll  weighing  but  8  ounces  when 
others  weigh  fourteen  ounces."  We  can  well  believe 
that  such  a  heavy  roll  made  poor  Anna  Winslow's 
head  *'  ach  and  itch  like  anything."  A  Salem  hair- 
dresser, who  employed  twelve  barbers,  advertised  thus 
in  1773  :  "  Ladies  shall  be  attended  to  in  the  polite 
constructions  of  rolls  such  as  may  tend  to  raise  their 
heads  to  any  pitch  they  desire." 

The  grotesqueness  of  such  adornment  found  fre- 
quent ridicule  in  prose  and  verse.     One  poet  sang : 

*'  Give  Chloe  a  bushel  of  horsehair  and  wool. 
Of  paste  and  pomatum  a  pound, 
Ten  yards  of  gay  ribbon  to  deck  her  sweet  skull 

And  gauze  to  encompass  it  round. 

/ 

**  Of  all  the  gay  colours  the  rainbow  displays 

Be  those  ribbons  which  hang  on  her  head, 

Be  her  flowers  adapted  to  make  the  folks  gaze, 

And  about  the  whole  work  be  they  spread. 

**  Let  her  flaps  fly  behind  for  a  yard  at  the  least, 
Let  her  cilrls  meet  just  under  her  chin. 
Let  those  curls  be  supported  to  keep  up  the  list, 
With  an  hundred  instead  of  one  i^in." 


296  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

We  can  easily  see  that  after  such  rough  treatment 
the  hair  needed  restoring  waters ;  and  indeed  from 
earliest  times  hair-restorers  and  hair-dyes  did  these 
"  vain  ancients  "  use.  "  Women  with  juice  of  herbs 
gray  locks  disguised."  In  these  days  of  manifold  mys- 
terious nostrums  that  gild  the  head  of  declining  age 
and  make  glad  the  waste  places  on  bald  young  mascu- 
line pates,  let  us  read  the  simple  receipts  of  the  good 
old  times : 

"Take  half  a  pound  of  Aqua  Mellis  in  the  Springtime 
of  the  Year,  warm  a  little  of  it  every  morning  when  you 
rise  in  a  Sawcer,  and  tie  a  little  Spunge  to  a  fine  Box 
combe,  and  dip  it  in  the  water  and  therewith  moisten  the 
roots  of  the  hair  in  Combing  it,  and  it  will  grow  long  and 
thick  and  curled  in  a  very  short  time." 

"  Take  three  spoonfuls  of  Honey  and  a  good  handful  of 
Vine  Twigs  that  twist  like  Wire,  and  beat  them  wel,  and 
strain  their  Juyce  into  the  Honey  and  anoynt  the  Bald 
Places  therewith." 

Here  is  what  Captain  Sam  Ingersoll  of  Salem 
used,  or  at  any  rate  had  the  formula  of,  in  1685 : 

"  A  Metson  to  make  a  mans  heare  groe  when  he  is  bald. 
Take  sume  fier  flies  &  sum  Redd  wormes  &  black  snayls 
and  sum  hume  bees  and  dn  them  and  pound  them  & 
mixt  them  in  milk  or  water." 

These  washes  were  not  so  expensive  as  Hirsutus  or 
Tricopherous,  but  quite  as  effective  perhaps.  There 
were  hair-dyes,  too,  "  to  make  hair  grow  black  though 
any  other  color,"  and  the  leaf  that  holds  this  precious 


'*  ARTIFICES   OF   HANDSOMENESS"  297 

instruction  is  sadly  worn  and  spotted  with  various 
tinted  inks,  as  though  the  words  had  been  often  read 
and  copied  : 

"  Take  a  little  Aqua  Fortis,  put  therein  a  groat  or  six- 
pence, as  to  the  quantity  of  the  aforesaid  water,  then  set 
both  to  dissolve  before  the  fire,  then  dip  a  small  Spunge 
in  the  said  water,  and  wet  your  beard  or  hair  therewith, 
but  touch  not  the  skin." 

Hair-dressers  also  improved  on  nature.  William 
Warden,  a  wig  maker  in  King  Street,  Boston,  re- 
spectfully informed  the  ladies  of  that  town  that  he 
would  "  colour  the  hair  on  the  head  from  a  Eed  or 
any  other  Disagreable  Colour  to  a  Dark  Brown  or 
Black." 

It  did  not  matter  long  to  our  forefathers  whether 
these  hair-dyes  dyed,  or  hair-restorers  restored,  for  a 
fashion  hated  by  some  of  the  early  Puritans  as  a 
choice  device  of  Satan — the  fashion  of  wig-wearing — 
was  to  revolutionize  the  matter  of  masculine  hair. 
The  question  of  wigs  was  a  difficult  one  to  settle, 
since  the  ministers  themselves  could  not  agree.  John 
Wilson  and  Cotton  Mather  wore  them,  but  Eev.  Mr. 
Noyes  launched  denunciations  at  them  from  the  pulpit 
and  the  Apostle  Eliot  delivered  many  a  blast  against 
"  prolix  locks  with  boiling  zeal,"  and  he  stigmatized 
them  as  a  "  luxurious  feminine  protexity,"  but  yielded 
sadly  later  in  life  to  the  fact  that  the  "  lust  for  wigs 
is  become  insuperable."  The  legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts also  denounced  periwigs  in  1675,  but  all  in 
vain. 


298  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

They  were  termed  by  one  author  "  artificial  de- 
formed Maypowles  fit  to  furnish  her  that  in  a  Stage 
play  should  represent  some  Hagge  of  Hell,"  and  other 
choice  epithets  were  applied.  To  learn  how  these 
"  Horrid  Bushes  of  Vanity  "  could  be  hated,  let  us  hear 
the  pages  of  Judge  Sewall's  diary  : 

"  1701.  Having  last  night  heard  that  Joshua  Willard 
had  cut  off  bis  hair  (a  very  full  head  of  hair)  and  put  on 
a  Wigg,  I  went  to  him  this  morning.  Told  his  mother 
what  I  came  about  and  she  call'd  him.  I  enquired  of 
him  what  Extremity  had  forced  him  to  put  off  his  own 
Hair  and  put  on  a  Wigg  ?  He  answered  none  at  all.  But 
said  that  his  Hair  was  streight  and  that  it  parted  behinde. 
Seem'd  to  argue  that  men  might  as  well  shave  their  hair 
off  their  head,  as  off  their  face.  I  answered  men  were 
men  before  they  had  any  hair  on  their  faces  (half  of  man- 
kind never  have  any).  God  seems  to  have  ordain'd  our 
Hair  as  a  Test,  to  see  whether  we  can  bring  out  to  be  con- 
tent at  his  finding :  or  whether  we  would  be  our  own 
Carvers,  Lords,  and  come  no  more  at  Him.  If  we  dis- 
liked our  Skin  or  Nails  ;  tis  no  Thanks  to  us  for  all  that 
we  cut  them  not  off.  .  .  .  He  seem'd  to  say  would 
leave  off  his  Wigg  when  his  hair  was  grown.  I  spake  to 
his  Father  of  it  a  day  or  two  after.  He  thank'd  me  that 
had  discoursed  his  Son,  and  told  me  when  his  Hair  was 
grown  to  cover  his  ears  he  promised  to  leave  off  his 
Wigg.     If  he  had  known  it  would  have  forbidden  him." 

At  a  later  day,  though  it  was  "  gravaminous," 
Sewall  would  not  go  to  hear  the  bewigged  Joshua 
preach,  but  attended  another  meeting.     The  Judge 


"artifices  of  handsomeness"        299 

frequently  states  his  annoyance  at  the  universally 
wigged  condition  of  New  England. 

I  never  read  of  these  wig-wearing  times  without 
fresh  amaze  at  the  manner  in  which  our  sensible  an- 
cestors disfigured  themselves.  We  read  such  adver- 
tisements of  mountebank  head-gear  as  this,  from  the 
Boston  News  Letter  of  August  14,  1729  : 

"Taken  from  the  shop  of  Powers  Mariott  Barber,  a 
light  Flaxen  Naturall  Wigg  Parted  from  the  forehead  to 
the  Crown.  The  Narrow  Ribband  is  of  a  Red  Pinck  Col- 
our.    The  Caul  is  in  Rows  of  Red  Green  &  White." 

Twenty  shillings  reward  was  offered  for  this  gay 
wig,  and  "if  it  be  offered  for  sale  to  any  it  is  de- 
sired they  wont  stop  it."  Grafton  Fevergrure,  the 
peruke-maker  at  the  sign  of  the  Black  Wigg,  lost  a 
"  Light  Flaxen  Natural  Wigg  with  a  Peach-Blossom- 
coloured  Ribband."  In  1755  the  house  of  barber 
Goes,  of  Marblehead,  was  broken  into,  and  eight 
brown  and  three  grizzle  wigs  were  stolen ;  some  of 
these  had  "  feathered  tops,"  some  were  bordered  with 
red  ribbon,  some  with  purple.  In  1754  James  Mit- 
chel  had  white  wigs  and  "  grizzels."  He  asked  £20 
O.  T.  for  the  best.  "  Light  Grizzels  are  £15,  dark 
Grizzels  are  <£12  10s."  Under  date  of  1731  we  read 
of  the  loss  of  "a  horsehair  bobwig,"  and  another  with 
crow^n  hair,  each  with  gray  ribbon,  an  Indian  hair 
bobwig  with  a  light  ribbon,  and  a  goat's  hair  natural 
wig  with  red  and  white  ribbons. 

The  "  London  Magazine  "  gave  in  1753  a  list  of  curi- 
ous names  of  wigs :  "  The  pigeops  wing,  the  comet, 


300  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

tlie  cauliflower,  the  royal  bird,  the  staircase,  the  lad- 
der, the  brush,  the  wild  boars  back,  the  temple,  the 
rhinoceros,  the  crutch,  the  negligent,  the  chancellor, 
the  out-bob,  the  long-bob,  the  half -natural,  the  chain- 
buckle,  the  corded  buckle,  the  detached  buckle,  the 
Jasenist  bob,  the  drop  wigg,  the  snail  back,  the  spin- 
age-seed,  the  artichoke." 

Hawthorne's  list  of  New  England  wigs  was  shorter : 
"  The  tie,  the  brigadier,  the  spencer,  the  albemarle, 
the  major,  the  ramillies,  the  grave  full-bottom,  and 
the  giddy  feather-top."  To  these  let  me  add  the 
campaign,  the  neck-lock,  the  bob,  the  lavant,  the  val- 
laney,  the  drop-wig,  the  buckle-wig,  the  bag-wig,  the 
Grecian  fly,  the  peruke,  the  beau-peruke,  the  long- 
tail,  the  bob-tail,  the  fox-tail,  the  cut-wig,  the 
tuck-wig,  the  twist-wig,  the  scratch.  Sydney  says 
the  name  campaign  was  applied  to  a  wig  which 
was  imported  from  France  in  1702,  and  was  made 
very  full  and  curled  eighteen  inches  to  the  front. 
This  date  cannot  be  correct,  when  we  find  John 
Winthrop  writing  in  1695  for  "two  wiggs  one  a 
campane,  the  other  short."  The  Eamillies  wig  had  a 
long  plaited  tail,  with  a  big  bow  at  the  top  of  the 
braid  and  a  small  one  at  the  bottom.  It  would  be 
idle  to  attempt  to  describe  all  these  wigs,  how  they 
swelled  at  the  sides,  and  turned  imder  in  rolls,  and 
rose  in  puffs,  and  then  shrank  to  a  small  close  wig 
that  vanished  at  Eevolutionary  times  in  powdered 
natural  hair  and  a  queue  of  ribbon,  a  bag,  or  an  eel- 
skin,  and  finally  gave  way  to  cropped  hair  "  k-la-Bru- 


*' ARTIFICES   OF  HANDSOMENESS"  301 

tus  or  a-la-Titus,"  as  a  Boston  hair-dresser  adver- 
tised in  the  year  1800. 

Not  only  did  gentlemen  wear  wigs,  but  children, 
servants,  prisoners,  sailors,  and  soldiers  also ;  as  early 
certainly  as  1716  the  fashion  was  universal.  So  great 
was  the  demand  for  this  false  head-gear,  that  wigs 
were  made  of  goat-hair  and  horse-hair,  as  well  as 
human  hair.  The  cost  of  dressing  and  caring  for 
wigs  became  a  heavy  item  of  expense  to  the  wearer, 
and  income  to  the  barber ;  often  eight  or  ten  pounds 
a  year  were  paid  for  the  care  of  a  single  wig.  Wig- 
makers'  materials  were  expensive  also — "  wig  ribans, 
cauls,  curling  pipes,  sprigg  wyers,  and  wigg  steels ; " 
and  were  advertised  in  vast  numbers  that  show  the 
universal  prevalence  of  the  fashion. 

By  the  beginning  of  this  century,  women — having 
powdered  and  greased  and  pulled  their  hair  almost  off 
their  heads — were  glad  to  wear  their  remaining  locks 
a-la-Flora  or  a-la-Yirginia,  or  to  wear  wigs  to  simulate 
these  styles.  We  find  Eliza  Southgate  Bowne  writing 
thus  to  her  mother  from  Boston  in  the  year  1800  : 

"...  Now  Mamma  what  do  you  think  I  am  going  to 
ask  for? — a  wio.  Eleanor  Coffin  has  got  a  new  one  just 
like  my  hair  and  only  5  dollars.  I  must  either  cut  my  hair 
or  have  one.  I  cannot  dress  it  at  all  stylish.  Mis.  Coffin 
bought  Eleanor's  and  says  that  she  will  write  to  Mrs. 
Sumner  to  get  me  one  just  like  it.  How  much  time  it 
will  save — in  one  year !  We  could  save  it  in  pins  and 
paper,  besides  the  trouble.  At  the  Assembly  I  was  quite 
ashamed  of  my  head,  for  nobody  had  long  hair.  If  you 
will  consent  to  my  having  one  do  send  me  over  a  5  dollar 


302  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

bill  by  the  post  immediately  after  you  receive  this,  for  I 
am  in  hopes  to  have  it  for  the  next  Assembly — do  send 
me  word  immediately  if  you  can  let  me  have  one." 

This  persuasive  appeal  was  successful,  for  frequent 
references  to  the  wig  appear  in  later  letters. 

Though  false  teeth  and  the  fashion  of  filling  the 
teeth  were  known  even  by  the  ancient  Egyptians,  the 
science  of  dentistry  is  a  modem  one.  But  little  care 
of  the  teeth  was  taken  in  early  colonial  days,  and  the 
advice  given  for  their  preservation  was  very  simple : 

*'  If  you  will  keep  your  teeth  from  rot,  plug,  or  aking, 
wash  the  mouth  continually  with  Juyce  of  Lemons,  and 
afterwards  rub  your  teeth  with  a  Sage  Leaf  and  Wash 
your  teeth  after  meat  with  faire  water.  To  cure  Tooth 
Acli.  1.  Take  Mastick  and  chew  it  in  your  mouth  until 
it  is  as  soft  as  Wax,  then  stop  jour  teeth  with  it,  if  hol- 
low, there  remaining  till  it's  consumed,  and  it  wil  cer- 
tainly cure  you.  2.  The  tooth  of  a  dead  man  carried 
about  a  man  presently  suppresses  the  pains  of  the  Teeth." 

I  suppose  this  latter  ghoulish  cure  would  not  affect 
the  teeth  of  a  woman ;  if,  however,  a  seventeenth  or 
eighteenth  century  dame  could  cure  the  tooth-ache 
simply  with  a  plug  of  mastic,  she  was  much  to  be 
envied  by  her  degenerate  nineteenth-century  sister 
with  her  long  dentist's  bill. 

If  we  can  believe  Josselyn,  writing  in  1684,  New 
England  women,  then  as  now,  lost  their  teeth  at  an 
early  age.  He  speaks  of  them  as  "pitifully  Tooth 
shaken."     He  recommended  to  relieve  their  misery 


"ARTIFICES  OF  HANDSOMENESS"  303 

a  compound  of  brimstone,  gunpowder,  and  butter,  to 
be  "  rubbed  on  the  mandible."  This  colonial  remedy 
is  still  employed  on  New  England  farms.  Bumaby, 
writing  in  1759,  said  that  New  England  dames  had 
universally  and  even  proverbially  very  indifferent 
teeth.  The  Abbe  Eobin  says  they  were  toothless  at 
eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  and  attributes  this 
premature  disfigurement  to  tea-drinking  and  the  eat- 
ing of  warm  bread. 

When  we  read  the  composition  of  the  tooth-pow- 
ders and  dentifrices  used  in  early  colonial  days,  we 
wonder  that  they  had  any  teeth  left  to  scour.  Here 
is  Mr.  Ferene's  "  rare  Dentifrice  : " 

"First  take  eight  ounces  of  Irios roots,  also  four  ounces 
of  Pomistone,  and  eight  ounces  of  Cutel  Bone,  also  eight 
ounces  of  Mother  of  Pearl,  and  eight  ounces  of  Coral,  and 
a  pound  of  Brown  Sugar  Candy,  and  a  pound  of  Brick  if 
you  desire  to  make  them  red ;  but  he  did  oftener  make 
them  white,  and  then  instead  of  the  Brick  did  take  a 
pound  of  fine  Alabaster  ;  all  this  being  thoroughly  beaten 
and  sifted  through  a  fine  searse  the  powder  is  then  ready 
prepar'd  to  make  up  in  a  past  which  must  be  done  as  fol- 
lows : 

To  make  the  Said  Powders  into  a  past. 

Take  a  little  Gum  Dragant  and  lay  it  in  steep  twelve 
hours,  in  Orange  flower  water  or  Damask  Rose  Water ; 
and  when  it  is  dissolved  take  the  sweet  Gum  and  grind 
it  on  a  Marble  Stone  with  the  aforesaid  Powder,  and 
mixing  some  crums  of  white  bread  it  will  come  into  a 
past,  the  which  you  may  make  Dentifrices,  of  what  shape 


304  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

or  fashion  you  please,  but  long  rowles  is  the  most  com- 
modious for  your  use." 

Just  fancy  scouring  your  teeth  with  a  commodious 
roll  of  cuttle-bone,  brick-dust,  and  pumice-stone ! 

Another  tooth-powder  was  composed  of  coral,  Port- 
ugal snuff,  Armenian  bole,  "  ashes  of  good  tobacco 
which  has  been  burnt,"  and  gum  myrrh ;  and  ground 
up  "broken  pans" — coarse  earthenware — might  be 
substituted  for  the  coral. 

A  very  popular  and  much  advertised  tooth-wash 
was  called  "Dentium  Conservator."  It  was  made 
and  sold  in  New  England  by  the  manufacturer  and 
vendor  of  Bryson's  Famous  Bug  Liquid — not  an  al- 
luring companionship.  This  person  also  "  removed 
Stumps  and  unsound  Teeth  with  a  dexterity  peculiar 
to  Himself  at  the  Sign  on  the  Leapord."  There  were 
also  rival  Essences  of  Pearl  advertised,  each  equally 
eulogized  and  disparaged ;  "  Infallible  Sivit  render- 
ing the  teeth  white  as  alabaster  tho'  they  be  black  as 
Coal ;"  and  "  Very  Neat  Hawksbill  and  Key  Draught 
Teeth  Pullers."  These  key-draught  teeth-pullers 
were  one  of  the  cruellest  instruments  of  torture  of  the 
day,  often  breaking  the  jaw-bone,  and  always  causing 
unutterable  anguish.  Old  Zabdiel  Boylston  adver- 
tised in  the  News  Letter^  in  1712,  "  Powder  to  refresh 
the  Gums  &  whiten  the  Teeth."  There  were  also  sold 
*'tooth-sopes,  tooth-blanchs,  tooth-rakes." 

I  cannot  find  any  notice  of  the  sale  of  "  teeth 
brushes"  till  nearly  Revolutionary  times.  Perhaps 
the  colonists  used,  as  in  old  England,  little  brushes 


306 

made  of  ''dentissick  root"  or  mallow,  chewed  into  a 
fibrous  swab. 

I  have  seen  no  advei-tisements  that  strike  a  great- 
er chill  than  the  scanty  notices  of  early  dentists  and 
dentistry  that  appear  at  the  latter  part  of  the  past 
century.  The  glory  of  having  a  Eevolutionary  patriot 
for  a  workman  cannot  soften  the  hard  plainness  of 
speech  of  this  advertisement  in  the  Boston  Evening 
Post  of  September  26,  1768  : 

"  Whereas  many  Persons  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  lose 
their  Fore  Teeth  by  Accident  or  Otherways  to  their  great 
Detriment  not  only  in  looks  but  in  speaking  both  in  pub- 
lic and  private.  This  is  to  inform  all  such  that  they  may 
have  them  replaced  with  Artificial  Ones  that  look  as  weU 
as  the  Natural  and  answer  the  End  of  Speaking  by  Paul 
Revere  Goldsmith  near  the  head  of  Dr.  Clarkes  wharf.  All 
Persons  who  have  had  false  Teeth  Fixed  by  Mr.  Jos 
Baker  Surgeon  Dentist  and  They  have  got  loose  as  they 
will  in  Time  may  have  them  fastened  by  above  said 
Revere  who  learnt  the  method  of  fixing  them  from  Mr. 
Baker." 

It  will  be  remarked  that  these  teeth  were  only  to  dis- 
play and  talk  with,  and  were  but  sorry  helps  in  eating. 
This  very  appalling  advertisement  from  the  Massachu- 
setts Centinel  gives  a  clue  to  the  way  in  which  missing 
teeth  were  replaced :  "  Live  Teeth.  Those  Persons 
inclined  to  dispose  of  Live  Teeth  may  apply  to  Tem- 
pleman."  Or  this  from  the  Connecticut  Courant  of  Au- 
gust 17,  1795:  "A  generous  price  paid  for  Human 
Front  Teeth  perfectly  sound,  by  Dr.  Skinner."  These 
20 


306  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

''live  teeth  "  were  inserted  in  other  and  vainer,  if  not 
more  squeamish  persons'  mouths,  by  a  process  of  "  in- 
grafting "  which  was  much  in  vogue.  There  were  few 
New  England  dentists  eo  nomine  until  well  into  this 
century — but  three  in  Boston  in  1816.  As  silversmith 
and  engraver  Revere  also  set  teeth,  so  Isaac  Green- 
wood, who  waited  at  their  houses  on  all  who  required 
his  dental  services,  also  made  umbrellas,  sold  cane  for 
hoop  petticoats,  and  made  dice  and  chessmen.  Wm. 
Greenwood  pulled  teeth  and  sold  pianos ;  and  Dr. 
Flagg,  a  surgeon  dentist,  advertised  in  1797  that  he 
would  get  hand-organs  in  Europe  suitable  for  church 
use.  John  Templeman,  the  live-teeth  purchaser,  was 
a  broker  as  well  as  a  dentist ;  and  Wliitlock,  the  actor, 
did  a  thriving  dental  business,  and  doubtless  carried 
his  "  neat  hawksbill  or  key-draught  tooth- wrench  " 
to  the  play-house,  and  used  it,  to  his  own  profit  and 
his  fellow-townsmen's  misery,  between  the  acts. 

Though  the  Pilgrim  women  were  doubtless  as  sim- 
ple at  their  toilet  as  they  were  in  their  dress,  the  sud- 
den growth  of  the  colony  in  wealth  brought  to  their 
daughters,  besides  variety  and  richness  of  dress,  a 
love  of  cosmetics.  Dunton  tells  positively  of  one 
painted  face  in  Boston  in  1686.  He  said,  "to  hide 
her  age  she  paints,  and  to  hide  her  painting  dares 
hardly  laugh."  One  New  England  minister  thus  re- 
proved and  warned  the  women  of  his  congregation : 
"  At  the  resurrection  of  the  Just  there  will  no  such 
sight  be  met  as  the  Angels  carrying  Painted  Ladies 
in  their  arms." 

In  the  inventory  of  one  of  the  early  Cambridge  set- 


'*  ARTIFICES  OF  HANDSOMENESS"  307 

tiers,  Eobert  Daniel,  is  found  the  item  "  two  Ceruse 
Jugs."  Ceruse  was  a  preparation  of  white  lead  with 
which  women  then  painted  their  faces,  and  I  think 
these  ceruse  jugs  were  part  of  the  paraphernalia  of 
my  Lady  Daniel's  toilet-table. 

With  the  advent  of  newspapers  came  various  ad- 
vertisements that  showed  the  vanity  of  our  forbears, 
the  "  collusions  of  women,  their  oyntments  and  potti- 
cary  drugs,  and  all  their  slibber  sawces." 

"  An  Excellent  Wash  for  the  Skin  which  entirely  taketh 
out  all  Freckles  Moath  &  Sunburn  from  the  Face  Neck 
&  Hands,  which  with  Frequent  Use  adds  a  most  Agree- 
able Lustre  to  the  Complexion,  softens  &  beautifies  the 
Skin  to  Admiration  And  is  generally  used  and  approved 
of  by  most  of  the  Gentry  in  London  of  both  Sexes.'* 

*'  Best  Face  Powder  which  gives  a  fine  Bloom  to  the 
Face  which  answers  all  the  intents  of  White  Paint  with- 
out that  Pernicious  effect  that  attends  Paint.  Also  a  Com- 
position to  take  off  Superficious  Hair." 

The  latter  clause  shows  that  our  great-grandmothers 
Avere  quite  au  fait  with  the  nostrums  of  the  present 
day,  with  "  pargetting,  painting,  slicking,  glazing,  and 
renewing  old  ri veiled  faces." 

Many  pretty  rules  may  be  found  in  old  books  and 
diaries,  that  are  of  New  England,  rules  "  to  make  the 
face  fair  "  and  to  "  make  sweet  the  mouth." 

"  Take  the  flowers  of  Rosemary  and  seeth  them  in 
White  Wine,  with  which  wash  your  face,  and  if  you  drink 
thereof  it  wil  make  you  have  a  sweet  breath." 


308  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

Maids  were  also  told  to  gather  tlie  sweet  May  dew 
from  the  grass  in  the  early  morning  to  make  a  fair 
face,  and  like  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's  milkmaid,  "put 
all  face-physic  out  of  countenance."  And  pretty  it 
were  to  see  Cicely,  Peg,  and  Joan  in  petticoat  and 
sack  or  smock,  each  with  a  "  faire  linnen  cloath  "  a- 
dipping  her  rosy  face  in  the  fresh  May  dew.  Could 
this  have  been  but  a  sly  trick  to  get  the  lasses  from 
their  beds  betimes?  "We  know  the  early  hour  at 
which  Madam  Pepys  had  to  bathe  her  mighty  hand- 
some face  in  the  beautifying  spring  dew. 

Patches  were  worn  as  eagerly,  apparently,  by  Bos- 
ton as  by  London  belles.  "Whitefield  complained  of 
the  jewels,  patches,  and  gay  apparel  donned  in  New 
England.  In  scores  of  old  newspapars  after  1760  ap- 
pear notices  of  the  sale  of  "Face  Patches,"  "Patch 
for  Ladies,"  "  Gum  Patches,"  etc.,  and  the  frequency 
of  advertisement  would  indicate  a  popular  and  ready 


With  regard  to  the  bathing  habits  of  our  ancestors 
but  little  can  be  said,  and  but  little  had  best  be  said. 
Charles  Francis  Adams  writes,  with  witty  plainness, 
"  If  among  personal  virtues  cleanliness  be  indeed  that 
which  ranks  next  to  godliness,  then  judged  by  the 
nineteenth  century  standards,  it  is  well  if  those  who 
lived  in  the  eighteenth  century  had  a  sufficiency  of 
the  latter  quality  to  make  good  what  they  lacked  of 
the  former."  He  says  there  was  not  a  bath-room  in 
the  town  of  Quincy  prior  to  the  year  1820.  And  of 
what  use  would  pitchers  or  tubs  of  water  have  been 
in  bed-rooms  in  the  winter  time,  when  if  exposed 


**  ARTIFICES  OF  HANDSOMENESS''  309 

over  night  solid  ice  would  be  found  therein  in  the 
morning?  The  washing  of  linen  in  New  England 
homes  was  done  monthly ;  it  is  to  be  hoped  the  per- 
sonal baths  were  more  frequent,  even  under  the  ap- 
parent difficulties  of  accomplishment.  I  must  state, 
in  truth,  though  with  deep  mortification,  that  I 
cannot  find  in  inventories  even  of  Revolutionary 
times  the  slightest  sign  of  the  presence  of  balneary 
appurtenances  in  bed-rooms ;  not  even  of  ewers,  lavers, 
and  basins,  nor  of  pails  and  tubs.  As  petty  pieces 
of  furniture,  such  as  stools,  besoms,  framed  pictures, 
and  looking-glasses  are  enumerated,  this  conspicuous 
absence  of  what  we  deem  an  absolute  necessity  for 
decency  speaks  with  a  persistent  and  exceedingly 
disagreeable  voice  of  the  unwashed  condition  of  our 
ancestors,  a  condition  all  the  more  mortifying  when 
we  consider  their  exceeding  external  elegance  in  dress. 
This  total  absence  of  toilet  appliances  does  not  of 
course  render  impossible  a  special  lavatory  or  bath- 
room in  the  house,  or  the  daily  importation  to  the 
bed-rooms  of  hot-water  cans,  twiggen  bottles,  bath- 
tubs, and  basins  from  other  portions  of  the  house ; 
but  even  that  equipment  would  show  a  lack  of  ade- 
quate bathing  facilities.  Nor  do  the  tiny  toilet  jugs 
and  basins  of  Staffordshire  ware  that  date  from  the 
first  part  of  this  century  point  to  any  very  elaborate 
ablutions. 

But  these  be  parlous  words  an  we  wish  to  honor 
the  memory  of  our  New  England  grandsires ;  and  let 
us  remember  that  these  negative  toilet  traits  were 
not  peculiar  to  them,  but  dated  from  the  fatherland. 


310  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

A  century  ago  the  English  were  said  to  be  the  only 
European  people  that  had  the  unenviable  distinc- 
tion of  going  to  the  dinner-table  without  previously 
washing  or  "dressing"  the  hands. 

One  very  unpleasant  cosmetic,  or  rather  detergent, 
was  in  constant  use,  however,  throughout  colonial 
times — wash-balls.  They  were  imported  as  early  as 
1693  in  company  with  scented  and  plain  hair-powder. 
In  1771,  "  Gentlemen's  Fine  "Washballs  "  were  adver- 
tised in  Boston,  and  "  Scented  Marbled  Washballs." 
Other  varieties  of  these  substitutes  for  soap  were 
Chemical,  Greek,  Venice,  Marseilles,  camphor,  amber- 
gris, and  Bologna  wash-balls.  This  is  a  rule  given  in 
olden  times  for  the  "Composition  for  Best  Wash 
Balls:" 

"Take  forty  pounds  of  Rice  in  fine  powder,  twenty 
eight  pounds  of  fine  flour,  twenty  eight  pounds  of  starch 
powder,  twelve  pounds  of  White  Lead,  and  four  pounds 
of  Orris  Root  in  fine  powder  but  no  Whitening.  Mix  the 
whole  well  together  and  pass  it  through  a  fine  sieve,  then 
place  it  in  a  dry  place  and  keep  it  for  use.  Great  care 
must  be  taken  that  the  Flour  be  not  musty,  in  which  case 
the  Balls  will  in  time  crack  and  fall  to  pieces.  To  this 
composition  may  be  added  Dutch  pink  or  brown  fine 
damask  powder  according  to  the  colour  required  when 
the  Wash  Balls  are  quite  dry." 

The  effect  of  so  large  an  amount  of  white  lead  must 
have  been  felt  and  shown  most  deleteriously  upon 
the  complexion  of  the  user  of  this  disagreeable  com- 
pound. 


"artifices  of  handsomeness"         311 

"  Ipswitch  balls  "  —  also  the  mode  —  were  more 
pleasing : 

"Take  a  pound  of  fine  White  Castill  Sope ;  shave  it 
thin  in  a  pinte  of  Rose  water,  and  let  it  stand  two  or  three 
dayes,  then  pour  all  the  water  from  it,  and  put  to  it  a 
lialfe  a  pinte  of  fresh  water,  and  so  let  it  stand  one  whole 
day,  then  pour  out  that,  and  put  to  it  halfe  a  pinte  more 
and  let  it  stand  a  night  more,  then  put  to  it  halfe  an 
ounce  of  powder  called  sweet  Marjoram,  a  quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  Winter  Savory,  two  or  three  drops  of  the  Oil  of 
Spike  and  the  Oil  of  Cloves,  three  grains  of  musk,  and  as 
much  Ambergreese,  work  all  these  together  in  a  fair 
Mortar  with  the  powder  of  an  Almond  Cake  dryed  and 
beaten  as  small  as  fine  flowre,  so  rowl  it  round  in  your 
hands  in  Eose  water.'* 

The  favorite  soap,  if  one  can  judge  from  importa- 
tions, was  "  Brown  or  Gray  Bristol  Sope,"  but  this 
was  not  used  by  many  in  the  community.  The  man- 
ufacture of  home-made  soap,  of  soft  soap,  was  one  of 
the  univeral,  most  important,  and  most  trying  of  all 
the  household  industries.  The  refuse  grease  of  the 
family  cooking  was  stowed  away  in  an  unsavory  mass 
till  early  spring,  and  the  wood  ashes  from  the  fire- 
places were  also  stored.  When  the  soap-making  took 
place,  the  ashes  were  placed  in  a  leach  tub  out  of 
doors.  This  tub  was  sometimes  made  from  the  sec- 
tion of  the  bark  of  a  birch  tree  ;  it  was  set  loosely  in 
a  circular  groove  in  a  base  of  wood,  or  preferably  of 
stone.  Water  was  poured  on  the  ashes,  and  the  lye 
trickled   from   an    outlet   cut   in   the   groove.     The 


312  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

boiling  of  tlie  lye  and  grease  was  an  ill-smelling  proc- 
ess, wMch  was  also  carried  on  out  of  doors,  and  re- 
quired an  enormous  amount  of  labor  and  patience. 
It  was  judged  that  when  the  compound  was  strong 
enough  to  hold  up  an  egg,  the  soap  was  done.  This 
strong  soft  soap  was  kept  in  a  wooden  "  soap  box  " 
in  the  kitchen,  and  used  for  toilet  as  well  as  household 
purposes. 

Dearly  did  the  English  and  the  New  English  love 
perfumes.  They  made  little  rolls  of  sweet-scented 
powders  and  gums  and  oils,  *'  as  large  as  pease,"  that 
they  placed  between  rose-leaves  and  burned  on  coals 
in  skillets  or  in  little  perfume-holders  to  scent  the 
room.  They  burned  on  their  open  hearths  mint  and 
rose-leaves  with  sugar.  They  took  the  "maste  of 
sweet  Apple  trees  gathered  betwixt  two  Lady  days," 
and  with  gums  and  perfumes  made  bracelets  and 
pomanders,  "  to  keep  to  one  a  sweet  smell."  They 
made  cakes  of  damask  rose-leaves  and  pulvilio,  civit, 
and  musk,  of  "  linet  and  ambergreese,"  to  perfume 
their  linen  chests,  for  lavender  thrived  not  in  New 
England.  The  duties  of  the  still-room  were  the  most 
luxury-bearing  of  all  the  old  household  industries. 
Its  very  name  brings  to  us  sweet  scents  of  Araby,  as 
it  brought  to  our  forbears  the  most  charming  and 
nice  of  all  their  domestic  occupations.  But  these 
duties  were  not  easy  nor  expeditious  work,  nor  did 
all  the  work  begin  in  the  still-room.  Faithfully  did 
dames  and  maids  gather  in  field  and  garden,  from 
early  spring  to  chilly  autumn,  precious  stores  for  their 
stills  and  limbecks.     In  every  garret,  from  every  raf- 


'^ARTIFICES   OF  HANDSOMENESS"  313 

ter,  slowly  swayed  great  susurrous  bunches  of  with- 
ered herbs  and  simples  awaiting  expression  and  distil- 
lation, and  dreaming  perhaps  of  the  summer  breezes 
that  had  blown  through  them  in  the  sunny  days  of 
their  youth  in  their  meadow  homes.  In  many  an  old 
garret  now  bare  of  such  stores  "  mints  still  perfume 
the  air ; "  the  very  walls  exhale  "  the  homesick  smell 
of  dry  forgotten  herbs." 

From  these  old  stills,  these  retorts  and  mills,  came 
not  only  perfumes  and  oils  and  beauty-waters,  but 
half  the  medicines  and  diet-drinks,  all  the  "  kitchen- 
physicke  "  of  the  domestic  and  even  the  professional 
pharmacopseia. 

Perfumes  were  also  imported  ;  we  frequently  find 
advertised  "  Eoyal  Honey  Water,  an  Excellent  Per- 
fume, good  against  Deafness,  and  to  make  the  hair 
grow  as  the  directions  Sets  forth.  Is  6d  per  bottle 
and  proportionate  by  Ounce."  Old  Zabdiel  Boyl- 
ston  had  it  in  1712.  Spirit  of  Benjamin  was  also  for 
toilet  uses.  This  was  the  base  of  the  well-known 
scent  known  as  Queen  Elizabeth's  Perfume.  It  was 
combined  with  sweet  marjoram.  Lavender  water  was 
apparently  a  great  favorite  for  importation,  and  we 
find  notices  of  lavender  bottles  with  shagreen  cases. 

We  find  in  newspaper  days  many  advertisements 
of  other  toilet  articles  such  as  nail-knippers,  pick- 
tooth  cases,  silk  and  worsted  powder-pus's,  deerskin 
powder  bags,  lip-salve,  ivory  scratch-backs,  flesh 
brushes,  curling  and  pinching  tongs,  all  showing  a 
strongly  crescent  vanity  and  love  of  luxury. 


XIII 
EAIMENT  AND  VESTUBE 

We  know  definitely  the  dress  of  the  settlers  of  Mas- 
sachusetts Bay,  for  the  inventory  of  the  "  Apparell 
for  100  men"  furnished  by  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Company  in  1628  is  still  in  existence.  From  it  we 
learn  that  enough  clothing  was  provided  to  supply  to 
each  emigrant  four^peare  of  shewes,"  four  "peare 
of  stockings,"  a  "  peare  Norwich  garters,"  four  shirts, 
two  "  sutes  dublet  and  hose  oi  leather  lynd  with  oil'd 
skyn  leather,  ye  hose  &  dublett  with  hookes  & 
eyes,"  a  "  sute  of  Norden  dussens  or  hampshire 
kersies  lynd,  the  hose  with  skins,  dublets  with  lynen 
of  gilford  or  gedlyman  kerseys,"  four  bands,  two  hand- 
kerchiefs, a  "  wastcoate  of  greene  cotton  bound  about 
with  red  tape,"  a  leather  girdle,  a  Monmouth  cap,  a 
"  black  hatt  lyned  in  the  browes  with  lether,"  five 
"  Bed  knit  capps  mill'd  about  5d  a  piece,"  two  pair  of 
gloves,  a  mandillion  "lyned  with  cotton,"  one  pair  of 
breeches  and  waistcoat,  and  a  "  lether  sute  of  Dublett 
&  breeches  of  oyled  lether,"  and  one  pair  of  leather 
breeches  and  "  drawers  to  serve  to  weare  with  both 
their  other  sutes." 

This  surely  was  a  liberal  outfit,  save  perhaps  in  the 


RAIMENT  AND  VESTURE  315 

matter  of  shirts  and  handkerchiefs,  and  doubtless  in- 
tended to  last  many  years.  Though  simple  it  was  far 
from  being  a  sombre  one.  Scarlet  caps  and  green 
waistcoats  bound  with  red  made  cheerful  bits  of  color 
alongside  the  leather  breeches  and  buff  doublets  on 
Salem  shore. 

The  apparel  of  the  Piscataquay  planters,  furnished 
in  1635,  varied  somewhat  from  that  just  enumerated. 
Their  waistcoats  were  scarlet,  and  they  had  cassocks 
of  cloth  and  canvas,  instead  of  doublets.  Though 
scarce  more  than  a  lustrum  had  passed  since  the  set- 
tlement on  the  shores  of  the  Bay,  long  hose  like  the 
Florentine  hose  had  become  entirely  old-fashioned 
and  breeches  were  the  wear.  Coats — "lynd  coats, 
papous  coats,  and  moose  coats  " — had  also  been  in- 
vented, or  at  any  rate  dubbed  with  that  name  and  as- 
sumed. Cassocks,  doublets,  and  jerkins  varied  little 
in  shape,  and  the  names  seem  to  have  been  inter- 
changeable. Mandillions,  said  by  some  authorities 
to  be  cloaks,  were  in  fact  much  like  the  doublets,  and 
were  worn  apparently  as  an  over-garment  or  great- 
coat. The  name  appears  not  in  inventories  after  the 
earliest  years. 

Though  simplicity  of  dress  was  one  of  the  corner- 
stones of  the  Puritan  Church,  the  individual  members 
did  not  yield  their  personal  vanity  without  many 
struggles.  As  soon  as  the  colonies  rallied  from  the 
first  years  of  poverty  and,  above  all,  of  comparative 
isolation,  and  a  sequent  tide  of  prosperity  and  wealth 
came  rolling  in,  the  settlers  began  to  pick  up  in  dress, 
to  bedeck  themselves,  to  send  eagerly  to  the  mother 


316  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

country  for  new  petticoats  and  doublets  that,  when 
proudly  donned,  did  not  seem  simple  and  grave 
enough  for  the  critical  eyes  of  the  omnipotent  New 
England  magistrates  and  ministers.  Hence  restrain- 
ing and  simplifying  sumptuary  laws  were  passed.  ^ 
1634,  in  view  of  some  new  fashions  which  were 
deemed  by  these  autocrats  to  be  immodest  and  ex- 
travagant, this  order  was  sent  forth  by  the  General 
Court: 

"  That  no  person  either  man  or  woman  shall  hereafter 
make  or  buy  any  apparel,  either  woolen  or  silk  or  linen 
with  any  lace  on  it,  silver,  gold,  or  thread,  under  the  pen- 
alty of  forfeiture  of  said  clothes.  Also  that  no  person 
either  man  or  woman  shall  make  or  buy  any  slashed 
clothes  other  than  one  slash  in  each  sleeve  and  another 
in  the  back ;  also  all  cut-works,  embroideries,  or  needle- 
work cap,  bands,  and  rails  are  forbidden  hereafter  to  be 
made  and  worn  under  the  aforesaid  penalty  ;  also  all  gold 
or  silver  girdles,  hatbands,  belts,  ruffs,  beaverhats  are 
prohibited  to  be  bought  and  worn  hereafter." 

Liberty  was  thriftily  given  the  planters,  however, 
to  "  wear  out  such  apparel  as  they  are  now  provided 
of  except  the  immoderate  great  sleeves,  slashed  ap- 
parel, immoderate  great  rails  and  long  wings,"  which 
latter  were  apparently  beyond  Puritanical  endurance. 

In  1639  "  immoderate  great  breeches,  knots  of  ryban, 
broad  shoulder  bands  and  rayles,  silk  ruses,  double 
ruffles  and  capes  "  were  added  to  the  list  of  tabooed 
garments. 

In  1651   the   General   Court  again  expressed   its 


RAIMENT  AND   VESTURE  317 

"  utter  detestation  and  dislike  that  men  or  women  of 
meane  condition,  education  and  callings  should  take 
uppon  them  the  garbe  of  gentlemen  by  the  wearinge  of 
gold  or  silver  lace  or  buttons  or  poynts  at  their  knees, 
to  walke  in  great  boots,  or  women  of  the  same  rank 
to  wear  silke  or  tiffany  hoodes  or  scarf es." 

Many  persons  were  "presented"  under  this  law; 
Puritan  men  were  just  as  fond  of  finery  as  were 
Puritan  women.  "Walking  in  great  boots  proved  al- 
luring to  an  illegal  degree,  just  as  did  wearing  silk 
and  tiffany  hoods.  But  Puritan  women  fought  hard 
and  fought  well  for  their  fine  garments.  In  North- 
ampton thirty-eight  women  were  brought  up  at  one 
time  before  the  court  in  1676  for  their  "  wicked  ap- 
parell."  One  young  miss,  Hannah  Lyman,  of  North- 
ampton, was  prosecuted  for  "  wearing  silk  in  a 
fflaunting  manner,  in  an  offensive  way  and  garb,  not 
only  before  but  when  she  stood  presented,  not  only 
in  Ordinary  but  Extraordinary  times."   * 

We  can  easily  picture  sixteen-year-old  Hannah,  in 
silk  bedight,  inwardly  rejoicing  at  the  unusual  oppor- 
tunity to  fully  and  publicly  display  her  rich  attire,  and 
we  can  easily  read  in  her  offensive  flaunting  in  com-t 
a  presage  of  the  waning  of  magisterial  pqwer  which 
proved  a  truthful  omen,  for  in  six  years  similar  pros- 
ecutions in  Northampton,  for  assumption  of  gay  and 
expensive  garments,  were  quashed.  The  ministers 
of  the  day  note  sadly  the  overwhelming  love  of 
fashion  that  was  crescent  throughout  New  England  ; 
a  love  of  dress  which  neither  the  ban  of  religion, 
philosophy,  nor  law  could  expel ;  what  Kev.  Solo- 


318  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

mon  Stoddard  called,  in  1675,-'*  intolerable  pride  in 
clothes  and  hair."  They  were  never  weary  of  preach- 
ing about  dress,  of  comparing  the  poor  Puritan  wom- 
en to  the  haughty  daughters  of  Judah  and  Jerusa- 
lem ;  saying  threateningly  to  their  parishioners,  as 
did  Isaiah  to  the  daughters  of  Zion  : 

"  The  Lord  will  take  away  the  bravery  of  their  tinkling 
ornaments  about  their  feet,  and  their  cauls  and  their 
round  tires  like  the  moon. 

"The  chains  and  the  bracelets  and  the  muffiers. 

"  The  bonnets  and  the  ornaments  of  the  legs  and  the 
head-bands  and  the  tablets  and  the  earrings. 

"  The  rings  and  nose  jewels. 

"  The  changeable  suits  of  apparel,  and  the  mantles  and 
the  wimples  and  the  crisping  pins. 

"  The  glasses  and  the  fine  linen  and  the  hoods  and  the 
vails." 

^  Every  evil  predicted  by  the  prophet  was  laid  at 
the  door  of  these  Boston  and  Plymouth  dames ;  fire 
and  war  and  poor  harvests  and  caterpillars,  and  even 
baldness — but  still  they  arrayed  themselves  in  fine 
raiment,  "  drew  iniquity  with  a  cord  of  vanity  and 
sin  with  a  cart-rope,"  and  "  walked  with  outstretched 
necks  and  wanton  eyes  mincing  as  they  go." 

As  an  exposition  of  the  possibilities,  or  rather  the 
actual  extensiveness,  of  a  Puritanical  feminine  ward- 
robe at  this  date,  let  me  name  the  articles  of  clothing 
bequeathed  by  the  will  of  Jane  Humphrey,  who  died 
in  Dorchester,  Mass.,  in  1668.     I  give  them  as  they 


RAIMENT  AND  VESTURE  319 

appear  on  the  list,  but  with  the  names  of  her  heirs 
omitted. 

"Ye  Jump.  Best  Ked  Kersey  Petticoate,  Sad  Grey 
Kersey  Wascote.  My  blemmish  Searge  Petticoate  &  my 
best  hatt.  My  white  Fustian  Wascote.  A  black  Silk 
neck  cloath.  A  handkercliiefe.  A  blew  Apron.  A  plain 
black  Quoife  without  any  lace.  A  white  Holland  Appron 
with  a  small  lace  at  the  bottom.  Red  Searge  petticoat 
and  a  blackish  Searge  petticoat.  Greene  Searge  Wascote 
&  my  hood  &  muffe.  My  Green  Linsey  Woolsey  petti- 
coate. My  Whittle  that  is  fringed  &  my  Jump  &  my 
blew  Short  Coate.  A  handkerchief.  A  blew  Apron.  My 
best  Quife  with  a  Lace.  A  black  Stuffe  Neck  Cloath.  A 
Wliite  Holland  apron  with  two  breadths  in  it.  Six  yards 
of  Redd  Cloth.  A  greene  Vnder  Coate.  Staning  Kersey 
Coate.  My  murry  Wascote.  My  Cloake  &  my  blew  Was- 
cote. My  best  White  Apron,  my  best  Shifts.  One  of  my 
best  Neck  Cloaths,  &  one  of  my  plain  Quieus.  One  Cal- 
lico  Vnder  Neck  Cloath,  My  fine  thine  Neck  Cloath. 
My  next  best  Neck  Cloath.  A  square  Cloath  with  a  little 
lace  on  it.     My  greene  Apron." 

It  is  pleasing  to  note  in  this  list  that  not  only  the 
garments  and  stuffs,  but  the  very  colors  named,  have 
an  antique  sound ;  and  we  read  in  other  inventories 
of  such  tints  as  philomot  (feuillemort),  gridolin  (gris- 
de-lin  or  flax  blossom),  puce  color,  grain  color  (which 
was  scarlet),  foulding  color,  Kendal  green,  Lincoln 
green,  watchet  blue,  barry,  milly,  tuly,  stammel  red, 
Bristol  red,  sad  color — and  a  score  of  other  and  more 
fanciful  names  whose  signification  and  identification 


320  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

were  lost  with  tlie  death  of  the  century.  In  later 
days  Congress  brown,  Federal  blue,  and  Indepen- 
dence green  show  our  new  nation. 

This  wardrobe  of  Jane  Humphrey's  was  certainly 

a  very  pretty  and  a  very  liberal  outfit  for  a  woman  of 

no  other  fortune.     But  to  have  all  one's  possessions 

in  the  shape  of  raiment   did  not   in  her  day  bear 

/  quite  the  same  aspect  as  it  would  at  the  present  day. 

Many  persons,  men  and  women,  preferred  to  keep 

I    their  property  in  the    form   of  what  they  quaintly 

I    called  "  duds."   The  fashion  did  not,  in  New  England, 

\   wear  out  more  apparel  than  the  man,  for  clothing,  no 

1  matter  what  its  cut,  was  worn  as  long  as  it  lasted,  do- 

I  ing  service  frequently  through  three  generations.   For 

instance,  we  find  Mrs.  Epes,  of  Ipswich,  when  she  was 

over  fifty  years  old,  receiving  this  bequest  by  will : 

"  If  she  desire  to  have  the  suit  of  damask  which  was 

the  Lady  Cheynies  her  grandmother,  let  her  have  it 

upon  appraisement."     Hence  we   cannot  wonder  at 

clothing  forming  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  articles 

bequeathed  by  wiU  and  named  in  inventories ;  for 

all  the  colonists 

**  .     .     .     studied  after  nyce  array, 
And  made  greet  cost  in  clothing." 

Nor  can  we  help  feeling  that  any  woman  should 
have  been  permitted  to  have  plenty  of  gowns  in  those 
days  without  being  thought  extravagant,  since  a 
mantua-maker's  charge  for  making  a  gown  was  but 
eight  shillings. 


RAIMENT   AND   VESTURE  321 

\  Thougli  the  shops  were  full  of  rich  stuffs,  there  was  ^ 
no  ready-made  clothing  for  women  for  sale  either  in 
outside  garments  or  in  under-linen.  Occasionally,  by 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we  read  the 
advertisement  of  a  "  vandoo  "of  "  full-made  gowns, 
petticoats  and  sacs  of  a  genteel  lady  of  highest 
fashion  " — a  notice  which  reads  uncommonly  like  the 
"  forced  sales  "  of  the  present  day  of  mock-outfits  of 
various  kinds. 

\  About  the  middle  of  the  century  there  began  to  ap- 
pear "ready-made  clothes  for  men."  JoUey  Allen 
advertised  such,  and  under  that  name,  in  1768, 
"  Coats,  Silk  Jackets,  Shapes  and  Cloth  Ditto ;  Stock- 
ing Breeches  of  all  sizes  &  most  colours.  Velvet 
Cotton  Thickset  Duroy  Everlasting  &  Plush  Breeches. 
Sailors  Great  Coats,  outside  &  inside  Jackets, 
Check  Shirts,  Frocks,  long  and  wide  Trowzers^, 
Scotch  bonnets  &  Blue  mill'd  Shirts."  But  women's 
clothes  were  made  to  order  in  the  town  by  mantua 
makers,  and  in  the  country  by  travelling  tailoresses 
and  sempstresses,  or  by  the  deft-fingered  wearers. 

New  England  dames  had  no  mode-books  nor 
fashion-plates  to  tell  to  them  the  varying  modes. 
Some  sent  to  the  fatherland  for  "fire-new  fashions  in 
sleeves  and  slops,"  for  garments  and  head-gear  made 
in  the  prevailing  court  style  ;  and  the  lucky  possess- 
ors lent  these  new-fashioned  caps  and  gOAvns  and 
cloaks  as  models  to  their  poorer  or  less  fortunate 
neighbors.  A  very  taking  way  of  introducing  new 
styles  and  shapes  to  the  new  land  was  through 
the  importation  by  milliners  and  mantua-makers  of 

21 


322  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

dressed  dolls,  or  "  babys  "  as  they  were  called,  tliat 
displayed  in  careful  miniature  the  fashions  and 
follies  of  the  English  court.  In  the  New  England 
Weekly  Journal  of  July  2,  1733,  appears  this  notice : 

"  To  be  seen  at  Mrs.  Hannah  Teatts  Mantua  Maker  at 
the  Head  of  Summer  Street  Boston  a  Baby  drest  after 
the  Newest  Fashion  of  Mantues  and  Night  Gowns 
&  everything  belonging  to  a  dress.  Latilly  arrived  on 
Capt.  White  from  London,  any  Ladies  that  desire  to  see 
it  may  either  come  or  send,  she  will  be  ready  to  wait  on 
'em,  if  they  come  to  the  House  it  is  Five  Shilling  &  if  she 
waits  on  'em  it  is  Seven  Shilling." 

We  can  fancy  the  group  of  modish  Boston  belles 
and  dames  each  paying  Hannah  Teatts  her  five  shill- 
ings, and  like  overgrown  children  eagerly  dressing 
and  undressing  the  London  doll  and  carefully  ex- 
amining and  noting  her  various  diminutive  garments. 

These  fashion  models  in  miniature  effigy  obtained 
until  after  Kevolutionary  times.  Sally  McKean  wrote 
to  the  sister  of  Dolly  Madison,  in  June,  1796  :  "I 
went  yesterday  to  see  a  doll  which  has  come  from 
England  dressed  to  show  the  fashion" — and  she  then 
proceeds  to  describe  the  modes  thus  introduced. 

W^e  can  gain  some  notion  of  the  general  shape  of 
the  dress  of  our  forbears  at  various  periods  from 
the  portraits  of  the  times.  Those  of  Madam  Shrimp- 
ton  and  of  Bebecca  Bawson  are  among  the  earliest. 
They  were  painted  during  the  last  quarter  of  the 
seventeenth  century.     The  dress  is  not  very  graceful, 


RAIMENT   AND   VESTURE  323 

but  far  from  plain,  showing  no  trace  of  Puritanical 
simplicity ;  in  fact,  it  is  precisely  that  seen  in  por- 
traits of  English  well-to-do  folk  of  the  same  date. 
Both  have  strings  of  beads  around  the  neck  and 
no  other  jewels ;  both  wear  loosely  tied  and  rather 
shapeless  flat  hoods  concealing  the  hair,  Madam 
Shrimpton's  having  an  embroidered  edge  about  two 
inches  wide.  Similar  hoods  are  shown  in  Eomain  de 
Booge's  prints  of  the  landing  of  King  William,  on  the 
women  in  th6  coronation  procession.  They  were  like 
the  Nithesdale  hoods  of  Hogarth's  prints,  but  smaller. 
Both  New  English  dames  have  also  broad  collars, 
stiff  and  ugly,  with  uncurved  horizontal  lower  edge, 
apparently  trimmed  with  embroidery  or  cut-work. 
Both  show  the  wooden  contour  of  figure,  which  was 
either  the  fault  of  the  artist's  brush  or  of  the  iron 
busk  of  the  wearer's  stays.  The  bodies  are  stiffly 
pointed,  and  the  most  noticeable  feature  of  the  gown 
is  the  sleeve,  consisting  of  a  double  puff  drawn  in 
just  above  the  elbow  and  confined  by  knots  of  rib- 
bon ;  in  one  case  with  very  narrow  ribbon  loops. 
Ban  die  Holme  says  that  a  sleeve  thus  tied  in  at  the 
elbow  was  called  a  virago  sleeve.  Madam  Shrimp- 
ton's  sleeve  has  also  a  falling  frill  of  embroidery  and 
lace  and  a  ruffle  around  the  armsize.  The  question  of 
sleeves  sorely  vexed  the  colonial  magistrates.  Men 
and  women  were  forbidden  to  have  but  one  slash  or 
opening  in  each  sleeve.  Then  the  inordinate  width 
of  sleeves  became  equally  trying,  and  all  were  ordered 
to  restrain  themselves  to  sleeves  half  an  ell  wide. 
Worse  modes  were  to  come  ;  "  short  sleeves  whereby 


324  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

the  nakedness  of  the  arm  may  be  discovered  "  had  to 
be  prohibited  ;  and  if  any  such  ill-fashioned  gowns 
came  over  from  London,  the  owners  were  enjoined  to 
wear  thick  linen  to  cover  the  arms  to  the  wrist.  Ex- 
isting portraits  show  how  futile  were  these  precau- 
tions, how  inoperative  these  laws ;  arms  were  bared 
with  impunity,  with  complacency,  and  the  present- 
ment of  Governor  Wentworth  shows  three  slashes  in 
his  sleeve. 

Not  only  were  the  arms  of  New  England  women 
bared  to  an  immodest  degree,  but  their  necks  also, 
calling  forth  many  a  "  just  and  seasonable  reprehen- 
sion of  naked  breasts."  Though  gowns  thus  cut  in 
the  pink  of  the  English  mode  proved  too  scanty  to 
suit  Puritan  ministers,  the  fair  wearers  wore  them 
as  long  as  they  were  in  vogue. 

It  is  curious  to  note  in  the  oldest  gowns  I  have 
seen,  that  the  method  of  cutting  and  shaping  the 
waist  or  body  is  precisely  the  same  as  at  the  present 
day.  The  outlines  of  the  shoulder  and  back-seams, 
of  the  bust  forms,  are  the  same,  though  not  so  grace- 
fully curved ;  and  the  number  of  pieces  is  usually 
the  same.  Yery  good  examples  to  study  are  the 
gorgeous  brocaded  gowns  of  Peter  Faneuil's  sister, 
perfectly  preserved  and  now  exhibited  in  the  Boston 
Art  Museum. 

Nor  have  we  to-day  any  richer  or  more  beautiful 
stuffs  for  gowns  than  had  our  far-away  grandmothers. 
The  silks,  satins,  velvets,  and  brocades  which  wealthy 
colonists  imported  for  the  adornment  of  their  wives 
and  daughters,  and  for  themselves,  cannot  be  excelled 


RAIMENT  AND   VESTURE  325 

by  the  work  of  modem  looms ;  and  the  laces  were  n 
equally  beautiful.  Whitefield  complained  justly  and 
more  than  once  of  the  "  foolish  virgins  of  New  Eng- 
land covered  all  over  with  the  Pride  of  Life  ; "  es- 
pecially of  their  gaudy  dress  in  church,  which  the 
Abbe  Robin  also  remarked,  saying  it  was  the  only 
theatre  New  England  women  had  for  the  display  of 
their  finery.  Other  clergymen,  as  Manasseh  Cutler, 
noted  with  satisfaction  that  "  the  congregation  was 
dressed  in  a  very  tasty  manner." 

In  old  New  England  families  many  scraps  of 
these  rich  stuffs  of  colonial  days  are  preserved ;  some 
still  possess  ancient  gowns,  or  coats,  or  waistcoats  of 
velvet  and  brocade.  In  old  work-bags,  bed-quilts, 
and  cushions  rich  pieces  may  be  found.  When  we 
see  their  quality,  color,  and  design  we  fully  believe 
Hawthorne's  statement  that  the  '*  gaudiest  dress  per- 
missible by  modern  taste  fades  into  a  Quakerlike  so- 
briety when  compared  with  the  rich  glowing  splen- 
dor of  our  ancestors."  \ 

The  royal  governor  and  his  attendants  formed  in  X 
each  capital  town  a  small  but  very  dignified  circle, 
glittering  with  a  carefully  studied  reflection  of  the 
fashionable  life  of  the  English  Court,  and  closely ^^ 
aping  English  richness  of  dress.  The  large  landed 
proprietors,  such  as  the  opulent  Narragansett 
planters,  and  the  rich  merchants  of  Newport,  Salem, 
and  Boston,  spent  large  sums  annually  in  rich 
attire.  In  every  newspaper  printed  a  century  or  a 
century  and  a  quarter  ago,  we  find  proof  of  this 
luxury  and  magnificence  in  dress  ;  in  the  lists  of  the    , 


326  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

property  of  deceased  persons,  in  the  long  advertise- 
ments of  milliners  and  mercers,  in  the  many  notices 
of  "  vandoos."  And  the  impression  must  be  given 
to  every  reader  of  letters  and  diaries  of  the  times,  of 
the  vast  vanity  not  only  of  our  grandmothers,  but  of 
our  grandfathers.  They  did  indeed  "  walk  in  brave 
aguise."  The  pains  these  good,  serious  gentlemen 
took  with  their  garments,  the  long  minute  lists  they 
sent  to  European  tailors,  their  loudly  expressed  dis- 
content over  petty  disappointments  as  to  the  fashion 
and  color  of  their  attire,  their  evident  satisfaction  at 
becoming  and  rich  clothing,  all  point  to  their  wonder- 
ful love  of  ostentation  and  their  vanity — a  vanity 
which  fairly  shines  with  smirking  radiance  out  of 
some  of  the  masculine  faces  in  the  "  bedizened  and 
brocaded  "  portraits  of  dignified  Bostonians  in  Har- 
vard Memorial  Hall,  and  from  many  of  the  portraits 
of  Copley,  Smibert,  and  Blackburn. 

Here  is  a  portion  of  a  letter  written  by  Governor 
Belcher  to  a  London  tailor  in  1733  : 

"I  have  desired  my  brother,  Mr.  Partridge  to  get  me 
some  cloaths  made,  and  that  you  should  make  them,  and 
have  sent  him  the  yellow  grogram  suit  you  made  me  at 
London  ;  but  those  you  make  now  must  be  two  or  three 
inches  longer  and  as  much  bigger.  Let  'em  be  workt 
strong,  as  well  as  neat  and  curious.  I  believe  Mr.  Harris 
in  Spittlefields  (of  whom  I  had  the  last)  will  let  you  have 
the  grogram  as  good  and  cheap  as  anybody.  The  other 
suit  to  be  of  a  very  good  silk,  such  as  may  be  the  Queens 
birthday  fashion,  but  I  don't  like  padisway.  It  must  be 
a  substantial  silk,  because  you'll  see  I  have  ordered  it  to 


RAIMENT  AND  VESTURE  327 

be  trimm'd  rich,  and  I  think  a  very  good  white  shagrine 
will  be  the  best  lining.  I  say  let  it  be  a  handsome  com- 
pleat  suit,  and  two  pair  of  breeches  to  each  suit." 

Picture  to  yourself  the  garb  in  which  the  patriot 
John  Hancock  appeared  one  noonday  in  1782 : 

*'  He  wore  a  red  velvet  cap  within  which  was  one  of  fine 
linen,  the  last  turned  up  two  or  three  inches  over  the  lower 
edge  of  the  velvet.  He  also  wore  a  blue  damask  gown 
lined  with  velvet,  a  white  stock,  a  white  satin  embroid- 
ered waistcoat,  black  satin  small-clothes,  white  silk  stock- 
ings and  red  morocco  slippers." 

What  gay  peacock  was  this  strutting  all  point-de- 
vice in  scarlet  slippers  and  satin  and  damask,  spread- 
ing his  gaudy  feathers  at  high  noon  in  sober  Boston 
streets ! — was  this  our  boasted  Eepublican  simplicity  ? 
And  what  "  fop -tackle  "  did  the  dignified  Judge  of 
the  Supreme  Court  wear  in  Boston  at  that  date  ?  He 
walked  home  from  the  bench  in  the  winter  time  clad 
in  a  magnificent  white  corduroy  surtout  lined  with 
fur,  with  his  judicial  hands  thrust  in  a  great  fur 
muff. 

Fancy  a  Boston  publisher  going  about  his  business 
tricked  up  in  this  dandified  dress — a  true  New  Eng- 
land jessamy. 

*'  He  wore  a  pea-green  coat,  white  vest,  nankeen  small- 
clothes, white  silk  stockings  and  pumps  fastened  with 
silver  buckles  which  covered  at  least  half  the  foot  from  in- 
step to  toe.    His  small-clothes  were  tied  at  the  knees  with 


328  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

riband  of  the  same  color  in  double  bows  the  ends  reaching 
down  to  the  ancles.  His  hair  in  front  was  well  loaded 
with  pomatum,  frizzled  or  creped,  and  powdered  ;  the 
ear  locks  had  undergone  the  same  process.  Behind  his 
natural  hair  was  augmented  by  the  addition  of  a  large 
queue,  called  vulgarly  the  false  tail,  which,  enrolled  in 
some  yards  of  black  riband,  hung  halfway  down  his 
back." 

We  must  believe  that  the  richest  brocades,  the  finest 
lawn,  the  choicest  laces,  the  heaviest  gold  and  silver 
buckles,  did  not  adorn  the  persons  of  New  England 
dames  and  belles  only ;  the  gaudiest  inflorescence  of 
color  and  stuffs  shone  resplendent  on  the  manly  fig- 
ures of  their  husbands  and  brothers.  And  yet  these 
men  were  no  "  lisping  hawthorn  buds,"  their  souls 
were  not  in  their  clothes,  or  we  had  not  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  heroes 
of  the  Ee volution. 

The  domination  of  French  ideas  in  America  af- 
ter the  Kevolution  found  one  form  of  expression  in 
French  fashions  of  dress ;  and  where  New  England 
women  had  formerly  followed  English  models  and 
English  reproductions  of  French  fashions,  they  now 
copied  the  French  fashions  direct,  to  the  improve- 
ment, I  fancy,  of  their  modes.  Too  many  accounts 
and  representations  exist  of  these  comparatively  re- 
cent styles  to  make  it  of  value  to  enter  into  any  de- 
tail of  them  here.  But  another  influence  on  the 
dress  of  the  times  should  be  recorded. 

The  sudden  and  vast  development  of  the  Oriental 


RAIMENT  AND   VESTURE 


329 


trade  by  New  England  ship-owners  is  plainly  marked 
by  many  changes  in  the  stuffs  imported  and  in  the 
dress  of  both  men  and  women.  Nankeens  became  at 
once  one  of  the  chief  articles  of  sale  in  drygoods 
shops.  Though  Fairholt  says  they  were  not  exported 
to  America  till  1825,  I  find  them  advertised  in  the 
Boston  Evening  Post  of  1761.  Shawls  appeared  in 
shopkeepers'  lists.  The  first  notice  that  I  have  seen 
is  in  the  Salem  Gazette  of  1784 — "  a  rich  sortment  of 
shawls."  This  was  at  the  very  time  when  Elias  Has- 
kett  Derby — the  father  of  the  East  India  trade — was 
building  and  launching  his  stout  ships  for  Canton. 
We  have  a  vast  variety  of  stuffs  nowadays,  but  the 
list  seems  narrow  and  small  when  compared  v/ith  the 
record  of  Indian  stuffs  that  came  in  such  numbers  a 
hundred  years  ago  to  Boston  and  Salem  markets.  The 
names  of  these  Oriental  materials  are  nearly  all  obso- 
lete, and  where  the  material  is  still  manufactured  it 
bears  a  different  appellation.  A  list  of  them  will 
preserve  their  names  and  show  their  number.  Some 
may  prove  not  to  have  been  Indian,  but  were  so  called 
in  the  days  of  their  importation. 


Alrabads. 

Anjungoes. 

Allejars. 

Atlasses. 

Addaties. 

AUibauies. 

Anbraeahs. 

Arradahs. 

Budoys. 

Bogliporea 


Bengals. 

Briampaux. 

Bagatapaux. 

Bumrums. 

Bulschauls. 

Brawls. 

Bafraes. 

Bejauraupaiits. 

Bafts. 

Baguzzees. 


Betelles. 

Byrampauts. 

Cuslilas. 

Coffies. 

Chinachurry 

Cherrydarry. 

Chilloes. 

Chints. 

Cutthees. 

Cossas. 


330 


OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 


Chenarize. 

Humadies. 

Peniascoes. 

Chittabullus. 

Izzarees. 

Pagnas. 

Coopees. 

Jollopours. 

Poppobs. 

Callowaypoose. 

Jandannies. 

Pbotaes. 

Cuttanees. 

Januwars. 

Pelongs. 

Carradaries. 

Luckbouris. 

Quilts. 

Cheaconies. 

Lemmones. 

Romalls. 

Chucklaes. 

Lungees. 

Eebings. 

Cadies. 

Mamoodies. 

Seersuckers. 

CLowtahs. 

Mabmudibiaties. 

Sallampores. 

Culgees. 

Mugga-Mamoo 

-  Soraguzzes. 

Chaffelaes. 

cbis. 

Soofeys. 

Corottas. 

Mickbannies. 

Seerbettees. 

Doreas. 

Masaicks. 

Sannoes. 

Deribands. 

Moorees. 

Seerindams. 

Doorguzzees. 

MowsanDas. 

Sbalbafts. 

Doodanies. 

Mulmouls. 

Seerbands. 

Dorsatees. 

Mulye-Gungee. 

Succatums. 

Danadars. 

Nicanees. 

Starrets. 

Elatchies. 

Nillaes. 

Terindams. 

Emertees. 

Neganepauts. 

Tapseils. 

Gurralis. 

Nenapees, 

Tanjeebs. 

Guzzinahs. 

Nagurapaux. 

Tepoys. 

Goaconcbeleras. 

OriDgals. 

Tainsooks. 

Gurraes. 

Pauncbees. 

Taffatties. 

Gelongs. 

Patnas. 

Tapis. 

Gingbams. 

Pallampores. 

Tarnatams. 

Gunieas, 

Ponabaguzzies. 

Taundab-Khassah. 

Humbums. 

Persias. 

Tandarees. 

XIV 
DOCTOBS  AND  PATIENTS 

Theke  lies  before  me  a  leather-bound,  time-stain- 
ed, dingy  little  quarto  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  pages 
that  was  printed  in  the  year  1656.  Its  contents  com- 
prise three  parts  or  books.  First,  "The  Queens 
Closet  Opened,  or  The  Pearl  of  Practise :  Accurate, 
Physical,  and  Chirurgical  Receipts."  Second,  "A 
Queens  Delight,  or  The  Art  of  Preserving,  Conserv- 
ing, and  Candying,  as  also  a  Bight  Knowledge  of 
Making  Perfumes  and  Distilling  the  most  Excellent 
Waters."  Third, ."  The  Compleat  Cook,  Expertly 
Prescribing  the  most  ready  wayes,  whether  Italian, 
Spanish,  or  French,  For  Dressing  of  Flesh  and  Fish, 
Ordering  of  Sauces,  or  Making  of  PASTBY  " — pastry 
in  capitals,  as  is  due  so  distinguished  an  article  and 
art. 

This  conjunction  of  leechcraft  and  cooking  was  in 
early  days  far  from  being  considered  demeaning  to 
the  healing  art.  A  great  number  of  the  cook-books  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  were  written 
by  physicians.  Dr.  Lister,  physician  to  Queen  Anne, 
wrote  plainly,  "  I  do  not  consider  myself  as  hazard- 
ing anything  when  I  say  no  man  can  be  a  good  phy- 


332  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

sician  who  has  not  a  competent  knowledge  of  cook- 
ery." 

The  book  contains  a  long,  pompous  preface,  in 
which  it  is  asserted  that  these  receipts  were  collected 
originally  for  her  "  distress'd  Soveraigne  Majesty  the 
Queen" — Henrietta  Maria ;  that  they  had  been  "  laid 
at  her  feet  by  Persons  of  Honour  and  Quality ;  "  and 
that  since  false  and  poor  copies  had  been  circulated 
during  her  banishment,  and  the  compiler,  who  fell 
with  the  court,  was  not  able  to  render  his  beloved 
queen  any  further  service,  he  felt  that  he  could  at  least 
"  prevent  all  disservices  "  by  giving  in  print  to  her 
friends  these  true  rules.  Thus  could  he  keep  the 
absent  queen  in  their  minds  ;  and  also  he  could  give 
a  fair  copy  to  her,  since  she  had  lost  her  receipts  in 
her  flight. 

Though  Agnes  Strickland  stated  that  copies  of  this 
Queens  Closet  Opened  are  exceedingly  rare  in  Eng- 
land, several  are  preserved  in  old  New  England 
families,  some  of  them  the  descendants  of  colonial 
physicians;  and  the  book  may  be  shown  as  a  fair 
example  of  the  methods  of  practice  and  composition 
of  prescriptions  in  colonial  and  provincial  days. 

This  volume  of  mine  was  one  of  those  which  were 
not  fated  to  dwell  among  "  Persons  of  Honour  and 
Quality "  in  old  England ;  it  crossed  the  waters  to 
the  new  land  with  simpler  folk,  and  was  for  many 
years  the  pocket-companion  of  an  old  New  England 
doctor.  Two  names  are  carefully  written  on  the  in- 
side of  the  cover  of  my  book,  names  of  past  owners : 
"  Edward  Talbot,  His  Book,"  is  in  the  most  faded 


DOCTORS    AND  PATIENTS  333 

ink,  and  "  William  Morse,  His  Book,  in  the  y'r  1710, 
Boston."  A  nrnsty,  leathery  smell  pervades  and  ex- 
hales from  the  pages,  and  is  mingled  with  whiffs  of 
an  equally  ancient  and  more  penetrating  odor,  that 
of  old  drugs  and  medicines  ;  for  many  a  journey  over 
bleak  hills  and  lonely  dales  has  the  book  made,  safe- 
ly reposing  at  the  bottom  of  its  owner's  pocket, 
or  lying  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  box  of  drugs  and 
medicines,  and  case  of  lancets  in  his  ample  saddle- 
bags. 

This  country  doctor,  like  others  of  his  profession  at 
the  same  date,  had  not  studied  deeply  in  college  and 
hospital;  nor  had  he  taken  any  long  course  of  in- 
struction in  foreign  schools  and  universities.  When 
he  had  decided  to  become  a  doctor,  he  had  simply 
ridden  with  an  old,  established  physician — ridden 
literally — in  a  half -menial,  half-medical  capacity.  He 
had  cared  for  the  doctor's  horse,  swept  the  doctor's 
office,  run  the  doctor's  errands,  pounded  drugs,  gath- 
ered herbs,  and  mixed  plasters,  until  he  was  fitted  to 
ride  for  himself.  Then  he  had  applied  to  the  court 
and  received  a  license  to  practise — that  was  all.  I 
doubt  not  that  this  book  of  mine,  and  perhaps  a 
manuscript  collection  of  recipes  and  prescriptions, 
and  a  few  Latin  treatises  that  he  could  hardly  de- 
cipher, formed  his  entire  pharmacopoeia.  As  he  had 
chanced  to  inherit  a  small  fortune  from  a  relative, 
he  became  a  physician  of  some  note  ;  for  in  colonial 
days  wealth  and  position  were  as  essential  as  were 
learning  and  experience,  to  enable  one  to  become  a 
good  doctor. 


334  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

I  like  to  think  of  the  rich  and  pompous  old  doctor 
a-riding  out  to  see  his  patients,  clad  in  his  suit  of  sober 
brown  or  claret  color  with  shining  buttons  made  of 
silver  coins.  The  full-skirted  coat  had  great  pockets 
and  flaps,  as  had  the  long  waistcoat  that  reached  w^ell 
over  the  hips.  Knee-breeches  dressed  his  shapely 
legs,  while  fine  silk  stockings  and  buckled  shoes  dis- 
played his  well-turned  calves  and  ankles.  On  his 
head  he  wore  a  cocked  hat  and  wig.  He  owned  and 
wore  in  turn  wigs  of  different  sizes  and  dignity — ties, 
periwigs,  bags,  and  bobs.  His  portrait  was  painted 
in  a  full-bottomed  wig  that  rivalled  the  Lord  Chancel- 
lor's in  size ;  but  his  every-day  riding- wig  was  a 
rather  commonplace  horsehair  affair  with  a  stiff  eel- 
skin  cue.  One  wig  he  lost  by  a  mysterious  accident 
while  attending  a  patient  who  was  lying  ill  of  a  fever, 
of  which  the  crisis  seemed  at  hand.  The  doctor  de- 
cided to  remain  all  night,  and  sat  down  by  a  table  in 
the  sick  man's  room.  The  hours  passed  slowly  away. 
Physician  and  nurse  and  goodwife  talked  and  droned 
on  ;  the  sick  man  moaned  and  tossed  in  his  bed,  and 
begged  fruitlessly  for  water.  At  last  the  room  grew 
silent,  the  tired  watchers  dozed  in  their  chairs,  the 
doctor  nodded  and  nodded,  bringing  his  eel-skin  cue 
dangerously  near  the  flame  of  the  candle  that  stood 
on  the  table.  Suddenly  there  was  heard  a  sharp  ex- 
plosion, a  hiss,  a  sizzle ;  and  when  the  smoke  cleared, 
and  the  terrified  occupants  of  the  room  collected  their 
senses,  the  watcher  and  mfe  were  discovered  under 
the  valance  of  the  bed ;  the  doctor  stood  scorched  and 
bareheaded,  looking  around  for  his  wig ;    while  the 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  335 

sick  man,  who  had  jumped  out  of  bed  in  the  confusion 
and  captured  a  pitcher  of  water,  drunk  half  the  con- 
tents, and  thrown  the  remainder  over  the  doctor's 
head,  was  lying  behind  the  bed  curtains  laughing 
hysterically  at  the  ridiculous  appearance  of  the  man 
of  medicine.  Instant  death  was  predicted  for  the  in- 
valid, who,  strange  to  say,  either  from  the  laughter  or 
the  water,  began  to  recover  from  that  moment.  The 
terrified  physician  was  uncertain  whether  he  ought  to 
attribute  the  conflagration  of  his  wig  to  a  violent 
demonstration  of  the  devil  in  his  effort  to  obtain 
possession  of  the  sick  man's  soul,  or  to  the  power- 
ful influence  of  some  conjunction  of  the  planets, 
or  to  the  new-fangled  power  of  electricity  which  Dr. 
Franklin  had  just  discovered  and  was  making  so 
much  talk  about,  and  was  so  recklessly  tinkering 
with  in  Philadelphia  at  that  very  time.  The  doctor 
had  strongly  disapproved  of  Franklin's  reprehensible 
and  meddlesome  boldness,  but  he  felt  that  it  was  best, 
nevertheless,  to  write  and  obtain  the  philosopher's 
advice  as  to  the  feasibility,  advisability,  and  the  best 
convenience  of  having  one  of  the  new  lightning-rods 
rigged  upon  his  medical  back,  and  running  thence  up 
through  his  wig,  thus  warding  off  further  alarming 
demonstration.  Ere  this  was  done  the  mystery  of 
the  explosion  was  solved.  When  the  doctor's  new 
wig  arrived  from  Boston,  he  ordered  his  newly  pur- 
chased negro  servant  to  powder  it  well  ere  it  was 
worn.  He  was  horrified  to  see  Pompey  give  the  wig 
a  liberal  sprinkling  of  gunpowder  from  the  powder- 
horn,  instead  of  starch  from  the  dredging-box ;  and 


336  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  explosion  of  tlie  old  wig  was  no  longer  assigned 
to  diabolical,  thaumaturgical,  or  meteorological  influ- 
ences. 

Let  us  turn  from  tlie  doctor  and  the  wig  to  the 
book  ;  let  us  see  what  he  did  when  he  singed  his 
head  and  burnt  his  face.  He  whipped  my  little  book 
out  of  his  pocket  and  turned  to  page  77 ;  there  he 
was  told  to  make  "  Oyl  of  Eggs.  Take  twelve  yolks 
of  eggs  and  put  them  in  a  pot  over  the  fire,  and  let 
them  stand  until  you  perceive  them  to  turn  black ; 
then  put  them  in  a  press  and  press  out  the  Oyl."  Or 
he  could  make  "  Oyl  of  Fennel "  if  he  preferred  it. 
But  probably  the  New  England  goodwife  had  on 
hand  one  of  the  dozen  astounding  salves  described  in 
the  book,  that  the  doctor  had  ere  this  instructed  her 
to  make,  and  in  which  I  trust  he  found  due  relief. 

One  cannot  wonder  that  the  sick  man  craved 
water,  when  we  read  what  he  had  had  to  drink.  He 
had  been  given,  a  spoonful  at  a  time,  this  "  Com- 
fortable Juleb  for  a  Eeaver,"  made  of  "Barley  Water 
&  White  Wine  each  one  pint.  Whey  one  quart,  two 
oimces  of  Conserves  of  Barberries,  and  the  Juyces 
of  two  limmons  and  2  Oranges."  The  doctor  had  also 
taken  (if  he  had  followed  his  Pearl  of  Practice)  "  two 
Salt  white  herrings  &  slit  them  down  the  back  and 
bound  them  to  the  soles  of  the  feet "  of  his  patient ; 
and  I  doubt  not  he  had  bled  the  sufferer  at  once,  for 
he  always  bled  and  purged  on  every  possible  occa- 
sion. 

The  Water  of  Life  was  also  given  for  fevers,  a  few 
drops  at  a  time,  and  also  as  a  tonic  in  health. 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  337 

"Take  Balm  leaves  and  stalks,  Betony  leaves  and 
flowers,  Rosemary,  red  sage,  Taragon,  Tor  men  til  leaves, 
Rossolis  and  Roses,  Carnation,  Hyssop,  Thyme,  red 
strings  that  grow  upon  Savory,  red  Fennel  leaves  and 
root,  red  Mints,  of  each  a  handful ;  bruise  these  hearbs 
and  put  them  in  a  great  earthern  pot,  &  pour  on  them 
enough  White  Wine  as  will  cover  them,  stop  them  close, 
and  let  them  steep  for  eight  or  nine  days  ;  then  put  to  it 
Cinnamon,  Ginger,  Angelica-seeds,  Cloves,  and  Nuttmegs, 
of  each  an  ounce,  a  little  Saffron,  Sugar  one  pound,  Ray- 
sins  solis  stoned  one  pound,  the  loyns  and  legs  of  an  old 
Coney,  a  fleshy  running  Capon,  the  red  flesh  of  the  sinews 
of  a  leg  of  Mutton,  four  young  Chickens,  twelve  larks, 
the  yolks  of  twelve  Eggs,  a  loaf  of  White-bread  cut  in 
sops,  and  two  or  three  ounces  of  Mithridate  or  Treacle,  & 
as  much  Muscadine  as  will  cover  them  all.  Distil  al  with  a 
moderate  fire,  and  keep  the  first  and  second  waters  by 
themselves  ;  and  when  there  comes  no  more  by  Distilling 
put  more  Wine  into  the  pot  upon  the  same  stuffe  and  distil 
it  again,  and  you  shal  have  another  good  water.  This 
water  strengtheneth  the  Spirit,  Brain,  Heart,  Liver,  and 
Stomack.  Take  when  need  is  by  itself,  or  with  Ale,  Beer, 
or  Wine  mingled  with  Sugar." 

Who  could  doubt  that  it  strengthened  the  spirit, 
especially  when  taken  with  ale  or  wine  ?  Plainly  here 
do  we  see  the  need  of  a  doctor  being  a  good  cook. 
But  what  pot  would  hold  all  that  flesh  and  fowl,  that 
blooming  flower-garden  of  herbs  and  posies,  that  as- 
sorted lot  of  fruits  and  spices,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
muscadine  ? 

Our  ancestors  spared  no  pains  in  preparing  these 
22 


838  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

medicines.  They  did  not,  shifting  all  responsibility, 
run  to  a  chemist  or  apothecary  with  a  little  slip  of 
paper ;  with  their  own  hands  they  picked,  pulled, 
pounded,  stamped,  shredded,  dropped,  powdered, 
and  distilled,  regardless  of  expense,  or  trouble,  or 
hard  work.  Truly  they  deserved  to  be  cured.  They 
did  not  measure  the  drugs  with  precision  in  preparing 
their  medicines,  as  do  our  chemists  nowadays,  nor  were 
their  prescriptions  written  in  Latin  nor  with  cabal- 
istic marks — the  asbestos  stomachs  and  colossal  minds 
of  our  forefathers  were  much  above  such  petty  mi- 
nuteness ;  nor  did  they  administer  the  doses  with  ex- 
actness. "  The  bigth  of  a  walnut,"  "  enough  to  lie  on 
a  pen  knifes  point,"  "the  weight  of  a  shilling," 
"  enough  to  cover  a  French  crown,"  "  as  bigg  as  a 
haslenut,"  "  as  great  as  a  charger,"  "  the  bigth  of  a 
Turkeys  Egg,"  "  a  pretty  draught,"  "a  pretty  bunch  of 
herbs,"  "  take  a  little  handful,"  "take  a  pretty  quan- 
tity as  often  as  you  please  " — such  are  the  lax  direc- 
tions that  accompany  these  old  prescriptions. 

Of  course,  the  remedies  given  in  this  book  were 
largely  for  the  diseases  of  the  day.  Physicians  and 
parsons,  lords  and  ladies,  combined  to  furnish  com- 
plex and  elaborate  prescriptions  and  perfumes  to 
cure  and  avert  the  plague ;  and  the  list  includes  one 
plague-cure  that  the  Lord  Mayor  had  from  the 
Queen,  and  I  may  add  that  it  is  a  particularly  un- 
pleasant and  revolting  one.  A  plague  swept  through 
New  England  and  decimated  the  Indian  tribes ;  and 
though  it  was  not  at  all  like  the  great  plague  that 
devastated  London,  I  doubt  not  red  man  and  white 


»• 


I 


DOCTORS. AND  PATIENTS  339 

man  took  confidingly  and  faithfully  medicines  such 
as  are  given  in  this  little  book  of  mine  :  the  king's 
feeble  and  much-vaunted  dose  of  "  White  Wine,  Gin- 
ger, Treacle,  and  Sage ;  "  Dr.  Atkinson's  excellent 
perfume  against  the  Plague,  of  "Angelica  roots  and 
Wine  Vinegar,  that  if  taken  fasting,  your  breath 
would  kill  the  Plague  "  (it  must  have  been  a  fearful 
dose)  ;  "  Mr.  Fenton's  the  Chirurgeon's  Posset  and 
his  Sedour  Koot." 

Cures  for  small-pox  and  for  gout  are  many.  Varied 
are  the  lotions  for  the  "  pin  and  web  in  the  eye ; " 
so  many  are  there  of  these  that  it  makes  me  suspect 
that  our  forefathers  were  sadly  sore-eyed. 

One  very  prevalent  ail  that  our  ancestors  had  to 
endure  (if  we  can  judge  from  the  number  of  pre- 
scriptions for  its  relief)  was  a  "  cold  stomack  ;  "  liter- 
ally cold,  one  might  think,  since  most  of  the  cures 
were  by  external  application.  Lady  Spencer  used  a 
plebeian  "greene  turfe  of  grasse"  to  warm  her  stomach, 
with  the  green  side,  not  the  dirt  side,  placed  next  the 
skin.  She  could  scarcely  have  worn  this  turf  when  she 

as  up  and  around  the  house,  could  she  ?  She  must 
ave  had  it  placed  upon  her  while  she  was  in  bed. 
Josselyn  said  in  his  "New  England  Rarities"  that, 
"  to  wear  the  skin  of  a  Gripe  dressed  with  the  doun 
on "  would  cure  pain  and  coldness  of  the  stomach. 
Thus  did  like  cure  like.  A  "  Restorative  Bag  "  of 
herbs  and  spices  heated  in  "  boyl'd  Vinegar  "  is  as- 

rted  to  be  "  comfortable."  "  It  must  be  as  hot  as 
can  be  endured,  and  keep  yourself  from  studying  and 

using  and  it  will  comfort  you  much."     So  it  seems 


340  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

you  ought  not  to  study  nor  to  muse  if  your  stomach 
be  cold. 

Many  and  manifold  are  the  remedies  to  *'  chear  the 
heart,"  to  "drive  melancholy,"  to  "  cure  one  pensive," 
"for the  megrums,"  "for  a  grief ;"  and  without  doubt 
the  lonely  colonists  often  needed  them.  We  know, 
too,  that  "  things  ill  for  the  heart  were  beans,  pease, 
sadness,  onions,  anger,  evil  tidings,  and  loss  of  friends," 
— a  very  arbitrary  and  unjust  classification.  Melan- 
choly was  evidently  regarded  as  a  disease,  and  a  much- 
to-be-lamented  one.  External  applications  were  made 
to  "  drive  the  worms  out  of  the  Brain  as  well  as  Dross 
out  of  the  Stomack."  Here  is  "  A  pretious  water  to 
revive  the  Spirits : " 

"  Take  four  gallons  of  strong  Ale,  five  ounces  of  Ani- 
seeds, Liquorish  scraped  half  a  pound,  Sweet  Mints, 
Angelica,  Eccony,  Cowslip  flowers,  Sage  &  Kosemary 
Flowers,  sweet  Marjoram,  of  each  three  handfuls,  Pali- 
tory  of  the  Wal  one  handful.  After  it  is  fermented  two 
or  three  dayes,  distil  it  in  a  Limbeck,  and  in  the  water 
infuse  one  handful  of  the  flowers  aforesaid.  Cinnamon  and 
Fennel-seed  of  each  half  an  ounce,  Juniper  berries  bruised 
one  dram,  red  Rosebuds,  roasted  Apples  &  dates  sliced 
and  stoned,  of  each  half  a  pound  ;  distil  it  again  and 
sweeten  it  with  some  Sugarcandy,  and  take  of  Amber- 
greese.  Pearl,  Red  Coral,  Hartshorn  pounded,  and  leaf 
Gold,  of  each  half  a  Dram,  put  them  in  a  fine  Linnen 
bag,  and  hang  them  by  a  thread  in  a  Glasse." 

Think  of  taking  all  that  trouble  to  make  something 
to  cheer  the  spirits,  when  the  four  gallons  of  strong  ale 


DOCTORS  AND   PATIENTS  341 

with  spices  would  have  fully  answered  the  purpose, 
without  bothering  with  the  herbs  and  fruits.  I  sup- 
pose the  gold  and  jewels  were  particularly  cheering 
ingredients,  and  perhaps  entitled  the  drink  to  its 
name  of  precious  water.  Indeed,  it  would  be  cheer- 
ing to  the  spirits  nowadays  to  have  the  precious 
metals  and  gems  that  were  so  lavishly  used  in  these 
ancient  medicines. 

Full  jewelled  were  the  works  of  English  persons  of 
quality  in  the  time  of  the  Merry  Monarch  and  his 
sire.  The  gold  and  gems  were  not  always  hung  in 
bags  in  the  medicines ;  frequently  they  were  powdered 
and  dissolved,  and  formed  a  large  portion  of  the  dose. 
Like  Chaucer's  Doctour,  they  believed  that  "  gold  in 
phisike  is  a  cordial."  Dr.  Gifford's  "  Amber  Pils  for 
Consumption  "  contained  a  large  quantity  of  pearls, 
white  amber,  and  coral,  as  did  also  Lady  Kent's  pow- 
der. Sir  Edward  Spencer's  eye-salve  was  rich  in 
powdered  pearls.  The  Bishop  of  Worcester's  "  admi- 
rable curing  powder  "  was  composed  largely  of  "  ten 
skins  of  snakes  or  adders  or  Slow  worms  "  mixed  with 
"Magistery  of  Pearls."  The  latter  was  a  common 
ingredient,  and  under  the  head  of  "  Choice  Secrets 
Made  Known  "  we  are  told  how  to  manufacture  it : 

"  Dissolve  two  or  three  ounces  of  fine  seed  Pearl  in  dis- 
till'd  Vinegar,  and  when  it's  perfectly  dissolved  and  all 
taken  up,  pour  the  Vinegar  into  a  clean  glasse  Bason  ; 
then  drop  some  few  drops  of  oyl  of  Tartar  upon  it,  and 
it  will  call  down  the  Pearl  into  the  powder ;  then  pour 
the  Vinegar  clean  off  softly ;  then  pat  to  the  Pearl  clear 


342  OLD    NEW   ENGLAND 

Conduit  or  Spring  water  ;  pour  that  off,  and  do  so  often 
until  the  taste  of  the  Vinegar  and  Tartar  be  clean  gone  ; 
then  dry  the  powder  of  Pearl  upon  warm  embers  and 
keep  for  your  use." 

Gold  and  precious  stones  were  specially  necessary 
"  to  ease  the  passion  of  the  Heart,"  as  indeed  they 
are  nowadays.  In  that  century,  however,  they  applied 
the  mercenary  cure  inwardly,  and  prepared  it  thus : 

"  Take  Damask  Roses  half-blown,  cut  off  thier  whites, 
and  stamp  them  very  fine,  and  straine  out  the  Juyce  very 
strong  ;  moisten  it  in  the  stamping  with  a  little  Damask 
Eose  water  ;  then  put  thereto  fine  powder  Sugar,  and 
boyl  it  gently  to  a  fine  Syrup  ;  then  take  the  Powders  of 
Amber,  Pearl,  Rubies,  of  each  half  a  dram,  Ambergreese 
one  scruple,  and  mingle  them  with  the  said  syrup  till  it 
be  somewhat  thick,  and  take  a  little  thereof  on  a  knifes 
point  morning  and  evening." 

I  can  now  understand  the  reason  for  the  unceasing, 
the  incurable  melancholy  that  hung  like  a  heavy 
black  shadow  over  so  many  Puritan  divines  in  the 
early  days  of  New  England,  as  their  gloomy  sermons, 
their  sad  diaries  and  letters,  plainly  show.  Those 
poor  ministers  had  no  chance  to  use  these  receipts 
and  thus  get  cured  of  "  worms  in  the  brain,"  with  an- 
nual salaries  of  only  £60,  which  they  had  to  take  in 
com,  wheat,  codfish,  or  bearskins,  in  any  kind  of 
"  country  pay,"  or  even  in  wampum,  in  order  to  get 
it  at  all.  Rubies  and  pearls  and  gold  and  coral  were 
scarce  drugs  in  clerical  circles  in  Massachusetts  Bay 


DOCTORS  AND   PATIENTS  343 

and  Plymouth  plantations.  Even  amber  and  ivory- 
were  far  from  plentiful.  We  find  John  Winthrop 
writing  in  1682,  "  I  am  straitened,  having  no  ivory 
beaten,  neither  any  pearle  nor  corall."  Cleopatra 
drinks  were  out  of  fashion  in  the  New  World.  So 
Mather  and  Hooker  and  Warham  were  condemned  to 
die  with  uncheered  spirits  and  unjewelled  stomachs. 

Another  ingredient,  unicorns'  horns,  which  were 
ground  and  used  in  powders,  must  have  been  diffi- 
cult to  obtain  in  New  England,  although  I  believe 
Governor  Winthrop  had  one  sent  to  him  as  a  gift 
from  England ;  and  John  Endicott,  writing  to 
him  in  1634,  said  :  "I  have  sent  you  Mrs  Beggarly 
her  Vnicorns  home  &  beza  stone."  Both  the  uni- 
corn's horn  and  the  bezoar  stone  were  sovereign  an- 
tidotes against  poison.  At  another  time  Winthrop 
had  sent  to  him  "  bezoar  stone,  mugwort,  orgaine,  and 
galingall  root."  Ambergris  was  also  too  rare  and 
costly  for  American  Puritans  to  use,  though  we  find 
Hull  writing  for  golden  ambergroose. 

Insomnia  is  not  a  bane  of  our  modern  civilization 
alone.  This  little  book  shows  that  our  ancestors 
craved  and  sought  sleep  just  as  we  do.  Here  is  a 
prescription  to  cure  sleeplessness,  which  might  be 
tried  by  any  wakeful  soul  of  modem  times,  since  it 
requires  neither  rubies,  pearls,  nor  gold  for  its  manu- 
facture : 

"Bruise  a  handful  of  Anis-seeds,  and  steep  them  in 
Red  Rose  Water,  &  make  it  up  in  little  bags,  &  binde  one 
of  them  to  each  Nostrill,  and  it  will  cause  sleep." 


344  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

So  aniseed  bags  were  used  in  earlier  days  for  a 
purpose  Yery  different  from  our  modern  one  ;  if  your 
nineteenth  century  nose  should  refuse  to  accustom  it- 
self to  having  bags  hung  on  it,  you  can  "  Chop  Cham- 
momile  &  crumbs  of  Brown  Bread  smal  and  boyl 
them  with  White  Wine  Vinegar,  stir  it  wel  and  spred 
it  on  a  cloth  &  binde  it  to  the  soles  of  the  feet  as  hot 
as  you  can  suffer  it."  And  if  that  should  not  make 
you  sleepy,  there  are  frankincense-perfumed  paper 
bags  for  your  head,  and  some  very  pleasant  things 
made  of  rose-leaves  for  your  temples,  and  hard-boiled 
eggs  for  the  nape  of  your  neck — you  can  choose 
from  all  of  these. 

They  had  abounding  faith  in  those  days.  Several 
of  the  prescriptions  in  "The  Queen's  Closet "  are  to 
cure  people  at  a  remote  distance,  by  applying  the 
nostrums  to  a  linen  cloth  previously  wet  with  the 
patient's  blood.  They  had  plasters  of  power  to  put 
on  the  back  of  the  head  to  draw  the  palate  into  place  ; 
and  wonderful  elixirs  that  would  keep  a  dying  man 
alive  five  years ;  and  herb-juices  to  make  a  dumb  man 
speak.  The  following  suggestion  shows  plainly  their 
confiding  spirit : 

"  To  Cure  Deafnesse. — Take  the  Garden  Dasie  roots 
and  make  juyce  thereof,  and  lay  the  worst  side  of  the 
head  low  upon  the  bolster  &  drop  three  or  four  drops 
thereof  into  the  better  Ear  ;  this  do  three  or  four  dayes 
together." 

"  Simpatheticall "  medicines  had  a  special  charm 
for  all  the  Winthrops,  and  that  delightful  but  gulli- 


DOCTOKS   AND   PATIENTS  345 

ble  old  Englisli  alchemist,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  kept 
them  well  posted  in  all  the  newest  nonsense. 

In  a  medical  dispensatory  of  the  times  the  different 
varieties  of  medicines  used  in  New  England  are  enu- 
merated. They  are  leaves,  herbs,  roots,  barks,  seeds, 
flowers,  juices,  distilled  waters,  syrups,  juleps,  decoc- 
tions, oils,  electuaries,  conserves,  preserves,  lohocks, 
ointments,  plasters,  poultices,  troches,  and  pills. 
These  words  and  articles  are  all  used  nowadays,  ex- 
cept the  lohock,  which  was  to  be  licked  up,  and  in  con- 
sistency stood  in  the  intermediate  ground  between  an 
electuary  and  a  syrup.  These  terms,  of  course,  were 
in  the  Galenic  practice.  In  "  The  Queen's  Closet  "  all 
the  physic  was  found  afield,  with  the  exception  of  the 
precious  metals  and  one  compound,  rubila,  which  was 
made  of  antimony  and  nitre,  and  which  was  in  special 
favor  in  the  Winthrop  family — as  many  of  their  let- 
ters show.  They  sent  it  and  recommended  it  to  their 
friends — and  better  still,  they  took  it  faithfully  them- 
selves, and  with  most  satisfactory  results. 

There  was  also  one  mineral  "  oyntment "  made  of 
quicksilver,  verdigris,  and  brimstone  mixed  with 
"  barrows  grease,"  which  was  good  for  "  horse,  man, 
or  other  beast."  Alum  and  copperas  were  once  rec- 
ommended for  external  use.  The  powerful  "  plaister 
of  Paracelsus,"  also  beloved  of  the  Winthrops,  was 
not  composed  of  mineral  drugs,  as  might  be  supposed, 
but  was  made  of  herbs,  and  from  the  ingredients 
named  must  have  been  particularly  nasty  smelling 
as  well  as  powerful. 

The  medicine  mithridate  forms  a  part  of  many  of 


346  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

these  prescriptions ;  it  does  not  seem  to  be  regarded 
as  an  alexipharmic,  but  as  a  soporific.  It  is  said  to 
have  been  the  cure-all  of  King  Mithridates.  I  will 
not  give  an  account  of  the  process  of  its  manufact- 
ure ;  it  would  fill  about  three  pages  of  this  book,  and 
I  should  think  it  would  take  about  six  weeks  to  com- 
pound a  good  dose  of  it.  There  are  forty-five  different 
articles  used,  each  to  be  prepared  by  slow  degrees  and 
introduced  with  great  care ;  some  of  them  (such  as 
the  rape  of  storax,  camel's  hay,  and  bellies  of  skinks) 
must  have  been  inconvenient  to  procure  in  New  Eng- 
land. Mithridates  would  hardly  recognize  his  own 
medicine  in  this  conglomeration,  for  when  Pompey 
found  his  precious  receipt  it  was  simple  enough : 
"Pound  with  care  two  walnuts,  two  dried  figs, 
twenty  pounds  of  rice,  and  a  grain  of  salt."  I  think 
we  might  take  this  cum  grano  salts. 

Queer  were  the  names  of  some  of  the  herbs ;  ale- 
hoof,  which  was  ground-ivy,  or  gill-go-by -ground, 
or  haymaids,  or  twinhoof,  or  gill-creep-by-ground, 
and  was  an  herb  of  Yenus,  and  thus  in  special  use 
for  "passions  of  the  heart,"  for  "amorous  cups," 
which  few  Puritans  dared  to  meddle  with.  The 
blessed  thistle,  of  which  one  scandalized  old  writer 
says,  "  I  suppose  the  name  was  put  upon  it  by  them 
that  had  little  holiness  themselves."  Clary,  or  clear- 
eye,  or  Christ's-eye,  which  latter  name  makes  the 
same  writer  indignantly  say,  "  I  could  wish  from  my 
soul  that  blasphemy  and  ignorance  were  ceased  among 
physicians  " — as  if  the  poor  doctors  gave  these  folk- 
names  !     The  crab-claws  so  often  mentioned  was  also 


DOCTORS   AND  PATIENTS  347 

an  herb,  otherwise  known  as  knight's-pond  water  and 
freshwater-soldier.  The  mints  to  flavor  were  horse- 
mint,  spearmint,  peppermint,  catmint,  and  heartmint. 

The  earliest  New  England  colonists  did  not  dis- 
cover in  the  new  country  all  the  herbs  and  simples 
of  their  native  land,  but  the  Indian  powwows  knew 
of  others  that  answered  every  purpose — very  healing 
herbs  too,  as  Wood  in  his  "  New  England's  Prospects  " 
unwillingly  acknowledges  and  thus  explains :  "  Some- 
times the  devill  for  requitall  of  their  worship  recovers 
the  paxtie  to  nuzzle  them  up  in  thier  devilish  Reli- 
gion." The  planters  sent  to  England  for  herbs  and 
drugs,  as  existing  inventories  show  ;  and  they  planted 
seeds  and  soon  had  plenty  of  home  herbs  that  grew 
apace  in  every  dooryard.  The  New  Haven  colony 
passed  a  law  at  an  early  date  to  force  the  destruc- 
tion of  a  "  great  stinking  poisonous  weed,"  which  is 
said  to  have  been  the  Datura  stramonium,  a  medic- 
inal herb.  It  had  been  brought  over  by  the  James- 
town colonists,  and  had  spread  miraculously,  and 
was  known  as  "  Jimson  "  or  Jamestown  weed. 

Josselyn  gives  in  his  "  New  England's  Barities  "  an 
interesting  list  of  the  herbs  known  and  used  by  the 
colonists. '  Cotton  Mather  said  the  most  useful  and 
favorite  medicinal  plants  were  alehoof,  garlick,  elder, 
sage,  rue,  and  saffron.  Saffron  has  never  lost  its 
popularity.  To  this  day  "  saffem  tea  "  is  a  standing 
country  dose  in  New  England,  especially  for  the 
"jamders."  Elder,  rue,  and  saffron  were  English 
herbs  that  were  made  settlers  here  and  carefully  cul- 
tivated ;  so  also  were  sage,  hyssop,  tansy,  wormwood, 


348  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

celandine,  comfrey,  mallows,  mayweed,  yarrow,  cham- 
omile, dandelion,  shepherd's-purse,  bloody  dock,  ele- 
campane, motherwort,  burdock,  plantain,  catnip,  mint, 
fennel,  and  dill — all  now  flaunting  weeds.  Dunton 
wrote  with  praise  of  a  Dr.  Bullivant,  in  Boston,  in 
1686,  "  He  does  not  direct  his  patients  to  the  East 
Indies  to  look  for  drugs  when  they  may  have  far 
better  out  of  their  gardens." 

There  is  a  charm  in  these  medical  rules  in  my  old 
book,  in  spite  of  the  earth-worms  and  wood-lice  and 
adders  and  vipers  in  which  some  of  them  abound  (to 
say  nothing  of  other  and  more  shocking  ingredients). 
In  surprising  and  unpleasant  compounds  they  do  not 
excel  the  prescriptions  in  a  serious  medical  book  pub- 
lished in  Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  as  late  as  1835. 
Nor  is  Cotton  Mather's  favorite  and  much-vaunted 
ingredient  millepedes,  or  sowbugs,  once  mentioned 
within.  All  are  not  vile  in  my  Queen's  Closet — far 
from  it.  Medicines  composed  of  Canary  wine  or 
sack,  with  rose-water,  juice  of  oranges  and  lemons, 
syrup  of  clove-gillyflower,  loaf  sugar,  "Mallago  rai- 
sins," nutmegs,  cloves,  cinnamon,  mace,  remind  me 
strongly  of  Josselyn's  New  England  Nectar,  and  ren- 
der me  quite  dissatisfied  with  our  modern  innovations 
of  quinine,  antipyrine,  and  phenacetin,  and  even 
make  only  passively  welcome  the  innocuous  and  un- 
interesting homoeopathic  pellet  and  drop. 

Many  other  dispensatories,  guides,  collections,  and 
records  of  medical  customs  and  concoctions,  remain 
to  us  even  of  the  earliest  days.  We  have  the  private 
receipt-book  of  John  Winthrop,  a  gathering  of  choice 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  349 

receipts  given  to  him  in  manuscript  by  one  Stafford, 
of  England.  These  receipts  have  been  printed  in  the 
Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
for  the  year  1862,  with  delightful  notes  by  Dr.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  and  are  of  the  same  nature  as  those 
in  the  Queen's  Closet.  Here  is  one,  which  was  ven- 
omous, yet  harmless  enough : 

.  "  My  black  powder  against  ye  plague,  small-pox,  pur- 
ples, all  sorts  of  feavers,  Poyson  ;  either  by  way  of  pre- 
vention or  after  Infection.  In  the  Moneth  of  March  take 
Toades,  as  many  as  you  will,  alive ;  putt  them  into  an  Earth- 
en pott,  so  y t  it  be  halfe  full ;  Cover  it  with  a  broad  tyle  or 
Iron  plate,  then  overwhelme  the  pott,  so  yt  ye  bottome 
may  be  uppermost ;  putt  charcoals  round  about  it  and 
over  it  and  in  the  open  ayre  not  in  an  house  ;  sett  it  on 
fire  and  lett  it  burne  out  and  extinguish  of  itself  ;  when 
it  is  cold  take  out  the  toades  ;  and  in  an  Iron  morter 
pound  them  very  well ;  and  scarce  them  ;  then  in  a  Cru- 
cible calcine  them  ;  So  againe  ;  pound  them  &  scarce  them 
again.  The  first  time  they  will  be  a  brown  powder,  the 
next  time  blacke.  Of  this  you  may  give  a  dragme  in  a 
Vehiculum  or  drinke  Inwardly  in  any  Infection  taken  : 
and  let  them  sweat  upon  it  in  their  bedds  :  but  let  them 
not  cover  their  heads  ;  especially  in  the  Small-Pox.  For 
prevention  half  a  dragme  will  suffice." 

I  do  not  know  what  meteorological  influence  was 
assigned  to  the  month  of  March ;  perhaps  it  was 
chosen  because  toads  would  be  uncommonly  hard 
to  get  in  New  England  during  that  month. 

All  the  medicines  in  Dr.  Stafford's  little  collection 


850  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

were  not,  however,  so  unalluring,  and  were,  on  tlie 
whole,  very  healing  and  respectable.  He  prescribed 
nitre,  antimony,  rhubarb,  jalap,  and  spermaceti,  "  the 
sovereignest  thing  on  earth — for  an  inward  bruise ;  " 
and  he  also  culled  herbs  and  simples  in  vast  variety. 
He  gave  some  very  good  advice  regarding  the  con- 
duct of  a  physician,  the  latter  clause  of  which  might 
well  be  heeded  to-day. 

"  Nota  bene.  No  man  can  with  a  good  Conscience  tal^e 
a  fee  or  Keward  before  ye  partie  receive  benefit  apparent 
and  then  he  is  not  to  demand  anything  but  what  God 
shall  putt  it  into  the  heart  of  the  partie  to  give  him.  A 
man  is  not  to  neglect  that  partie  to  whom  he  had  once 
administered  but  to  visit  him  at  least  once  a  day  &  to 
media  with  no  more  than  he  can  well  attend." 

The  account  books  of  other  old  New  England  phy- 
sicians, and  other  medical  books  such  as  "  A  Treatise 
of  Choice  Spagyrical  Preparations,"  show  to  us  that 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  century  medicines, 
though  disgusting,  were  not  deadly.  We  know  what 
medicines  were  given  the  colonists  on  their  sea 
journey  hither :  "  Oil  of  Cloves,  Origanum,  Purging 
Pills,  and  Eessin  of  Jalap  "  for  the  toothache  ;  a  Dia- 
phoretic Bolus  for  an  "  Extream  Cold  ;  "  Spirits  of 
Castor  and  Oil  of  Amber  for  "  Histericall  Pitts  ; " 
"  Seaurell  Emplaisters  for  a  broken  Shin ; "  and  for 
other  afflictions,  "  Gascons  Powder,  Liquorish,  Car- 
minative Seeds,  Syrup  of  Saffron,  Pectoral  Syrups 
and  Somniferous  Boluses." 


DOCTORS   AND  PATIENTS  351 

Cod  livers  were  given  then  as  cod-liver  oil  is  given 
now,  "to  restore  them  that  have  melted  their 
Grease."  A  favorite  prescription  was  "  Eulandus, 
his  Balsam  which  tho'  it  smel  not  wel "  was  properly 
powerful,  and  could  be  gotten  down  if  carefully 
hidden  in  "  pondered  shuger." 

Cotton  Mather,  who  tried  his  skilful  hand  at  writ- 
ing upon  almost  every  grave  and  weighty  subject, 
composed  a  book  of  medical  advice  called  the  "  Angel 
of  Bethesda."  It  was  written  when  he  was  sixty 
years  of  age,  but  was  never  printed  ;  the  manuscript 
is  preserved  in  the  library  of  the  American  Antiqua- 
rian Society  at  Worcester.  It  begins  characteristical- 
ly with  a  sermon,  and  is  fantastically  peppered  with 
pompous  scriptural  and  classical  quotations,  as  was 
the  Mather  wont.  The  ingredients  of  the  prescrip- 
tions are  vile  beyond  belief,  though,  as  Mather  said  in 
one  of  his  letters,  they  are  "  powerful  and  parable 
phy sicks,"  which  are  two  desirable  qualities  or  attri- 
butes of  any  physic.  The  book  gives  an  interesting 
account  of  Mather's  share  in  that  great  colonial  revo- 
lution in  medicine — the  introduction  of  the  custom 
of  inoculation  for  the  small-pox.  His  friend.  Dr. 
Zabdiel  Boylston,  of  Boston,  was  the  first  physician 
to  inaugurate  this  great  step  by  inoculating  his  own 
son — a  child  six  years  old.  Deep  was  the  horror  and 
aversion  felt  by  the  colonial  public  toward  both  the 
practice  and  practitioners  of  this  daring  innovation, 
and  fiercely  and  malignantly  was  it  opposed ;  but  its 
success  soon  conquered  opposition,  and  also  that  fell 
disease,  which  six  times  within  a  hundred  years  had 


352  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

devastated  New  England,  bringing  death,  disfigure- 
ment, and  business  misfortunes  to  the  colonists.  So 
universal  was  the  branding  produced  by  this  scourge 
that  scarcely  an  advertisement  containing  any  per- 
sonal description  appears  in  any  colonial  print,  with- 
out containing  the  words,  pock-fretten,  pock-marked, 
pock-pitted,  or  pock-broken. 

Through  the  possibility  of  having  the  small-pox  to 
order,  arose  the  necessity  of  small-pox  hospitals,  to 
which  whole  families  or  parties  resorted  to  pass 
through  the  ordeal  in  concert.  Small-pox  parties 
were  made  the  occasion  of  much  friendly  inter- 
course ;  they  were  called  classes.  Thus  in  the  Salem 
Gazette  of  April  22,  1784,  after  Point  Shirley  was  set 
aside  as  a  small-pox  retreat,  it  was  advertised  that 
"  Classes  will  be  admitted  for  Small  pox."  These 
classes  were  real  country  outings,  having  an  addi- 
tional zest  of  novelty  since  one  could  fully  partici- 
pate in  the  pleasures,  profits,  and  pains  of  a  small- 
pox party  but  once  in  a  lifetime.  Much  etiquette 
and  deference  was  shown  over  these  "  physical  gather- 
ings," formal  invitations  were  sometimes  sent  to  join 
the  function  at  a  private  house.  Here  is  an  extract 
from  a  letter  written  July  8,  1775,  by  Joseph  Bar- 
rell,  a  Boston  merchant,  to  Colonel  Wentworth :  "  Mr. 
Storer  has  invited  Mrs.  Martin  to  take  the  small-pox 
in  her  house ;  if  Mrs.  Wentworth  desires  to  get  rid  of 
her  fears  in  the  same  way  we  will  accomodate  her  in 
the  best  way  we  can.  I've  several  friends  that  I've 
invited,  and  none  of  them  will  be  more  welcome  than 
Mrs.  Wentworth."     These  brave  classes  took  their 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  353 

various  purifying  and  sudorific  medicines  in  cheerful 
concert,  were  "  grafted  "  together,  "  broke  out "  to- 
gether, were  feverish  together,  sweat  together,  scaled 
off  together,  and  convalesced  together.  Not  a  very 
prepossessing  conjoining  medium  would  inoculation 
appear  to  have  been,  but  many  a  pretty  and  senti- 
mental love  affair  sprang  up  between  mutually 
"  pock-fretten  "  New  Englanders. 

The  small-pox  hospitals  were  of  various  degrees 
of  elegance  and  comfort,  and  were  widely  advertised. 
I  have  found  four  separate  announcements  in  one  of 
the  small  sheets  of  a  Federal  newspaper.  From  the 
luxurious  high-priced  retreat  "without  Mercury" 
were  grades  descending  to  the  Suttonian,  Brunonian, 
Pincherian,  Dimsdalian,  and  other  plebeian  estab- 
lishments, in  which  the  patient  paid  from  fifteen 
to  as  low  as  three  dollars  per  week  for  lodging,  food, 
medicine,  care,  and  inoculation.  At  the  latter  cheap 
establishment  each  person  was  obliged  to  furnish  for 
his  individual  use  one  sheet  and  one  pillow-case — 
apparently  a  meagre  outfit  for  sickness,  but  possibly 
merely  a  supplemental  one. 

This  is  a  fair  example  of  the  prevailing  advertise- 
ment of  small-pox  hospitals,  from  the  Connecticid 
Gourant  of  November  30,  1767  : 

"  Dr.  Uriah  Rogers,  Jr.,  of  Nor  walk  County  of  Fair- 
field takes  this  method  to  acquaint  the  Publick  &  partic- 
ularly such  as  are  desirous  of  taking  the  Small  Pox  by 
way  of  Inoculation,  that  having  had  Considerable  Expe- 
rience in  that  Branch  of  Practice  and  carried  on  the  same 
2a 


354  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  last  season  with  great  Success ;  has  lately  erected  a 
convenient  Hospital  for  that  purpose  just  within  the  Ju- 
risdiction Line  of  the  Province  of  New  York  about  nine 
miles  distant  from  N.  Y.  Harbour,  where  he  intends  to 
carry  said  Branch  of  Practice  from  the  first  of  October 
next  to  the  first  of  May  next.  And  that  all  such  as  are 
disposed  to  favour  him  with  their  Custom  may  depend  up- 
on being  well  provided  with  all  necessary  accomodations, 
Provisions  &  the  best  Attendance  at  the  moderate  Ex- 
pence  of  Four  Pounds  Lawful  Money  to  Each  Patient. 
That  after  the  first  Sett  or  Class  he  purposes  to  give  ho 
Occasion  for  waiting  to  go  in  Particular  Setts  but  to  ad- 
mit Parties  singly,  just  as  it  suits  them.  As  he  has 
another  Good  House  provided  near  Said  Hospital  where 
his  family  are  to  live,  and  where  all  that  come  after  the 
first  Sett  that  go  into  the  Hospital  are  to  remain  with  his 
Family  until  they  are  sufficiently  Prepared  &  Lioculated  & 
Until  it  is  apparent  that  they  haven  taken  the  infection." 

Of  all  the  advertisements  of  small-pox  hospitals, 
inoculation,  etc.,  which  appear  in  the  newspapers 
through  the  eighteenth  century,  none  is  more  curi- 
ous, more  comic  than  this  from  a  Boston  paper  of 
1772: 

"  Ibrahim  Mustapha  Inoculator  to  his  Sublime  High- 
ness &  the  Janissaries :  original  Inventor  and  sole  Pro- 
prietor of  that  Inestimable  Instrument,  the  Circassian 
Needle,  begs  leave  to  acquaint  the  Nobility  &  Gentry  of 
this  City  and  its  Environs  that  he  is  just  arrived  from 
Constantinople  where  he  has  inoculated  about  50,000 
Pei-sons  without  losing  a  Single  Patient.  He  requires 
not  the    least    Preparation    Regimen    or  Confinement. 


DOCTORS  AND  PATIENTS  355 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  who  wish  to  be  inoculated  only 
acquaint  him  with  how  many  Pimples  they  choose  and  he 
makes  the  exact  number  of  Punctures  with  his  Needle 
which  Produces  the  Eruptions  in  the  very  Picquers. 
Ladies  who  fancy  a  favorite  Pitt  may  have  it  put  in  any 
Spot  they  please,  and  of  any  size  :  not  the  Slightest  Fever 
or  Pain  attends  the  Eruption  ;  much  less  any  of  those 
frightful  Convulsions  so  usual  in  all  the  vulgar  methods 
of  Inoculation,  even  in  the  famous  Peter  Puffs.  This 
amazing  Needle  more  truly  astonishing  and  not  less  use- 
ful than  the  Magnetic  one,  has  this  property  in  common 
with  the  latter,  that  by  touching  the  point  of  a  common 
needle  it  communicates  its  wonderful  Virtues  to  it  in  the 
same  manner  that  Loadstone  does  to  Iron,  And  that  no 
part  of  this  extensive  Continent  may  want  the  Benefit  of 
this  Superlatively  excellent  Method,  Ibrahim  Mustapha 
proposes  to  touch  several  Needles  in  order  to  have  them 
distributed  to  different  Colonies  by  which  means  the 
Small  Pocks  may  be  entirely  eradicated  as  it  has  been  in 
the  Turkish  Empire." 

Generous  Ibrahim  Mustapha !  despite  the  testi- 
mony of  the  Janissaries  and  the  entire  Turkish  Em- 
pire, I  cannot  doubt  that  in  your  early  youth  you 
frequently  kissed  the  Blarney  Stone,  hence  your 
fluent  tongue  and  your  gallant  proposition  to  becom- 
ingly decorate  with  pits  the  ladies. 

Besides  the  scourge  of  small-pox,  the  colonists  were 
afflicted  grievously  with  other  malignant  distempers 
— fatal  throat  diseases,  epidemic  influenzas,  putrid 
fevers,  terrible  fluxes ;  and  as  the  art  of  sanitation 
was  absolutely  disregarded  and  almost  imknown,  as 


356  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

drainage  there  was  none,  and  the  notion  of  disinfec- 
tion was  in  feeble  infancy,  we  cannot  wonder  that 
the  death-rates  were  high.  Well  might  the  New 
Englander  say  with  Sir  Thomas  Browne :  "  Consid- 
ering the  thousand  doors  that  lead  to  death,  I  do 
thank  my  God  that  we  can  die  but  once." 

Cotton  Mather  was  not  the  only  kind-hearted  New 
England  minister  who  set  up  to  heal  the  body  as  well 
as  the  soul  of  the  entire  to^vn.  All  the  early  parsons 
seem  to  have  turned  eagerly  to  medicine.  The  Wig- 
glesworths  were  famous  doctors.  President  Hoar,  of 
Harvard  College,  President  Kogers,  President  Chaun- 
cey,  all  practised  medicine.  The  latter's  six  sons 
were  all  ministers,  and  all  good  doctors,  too.  It  was 
a  parson,  Thomas  Thatcher,  who  wrote  the  first 
medical  treatise  published  in  America,  a  set  of 
"Brief  Rules  for  the  Care  of  the  Small  Pocks," 
printed  as  a  broadside  in  1677.  Many  of  the  early 
parsons  played  also  the  part  of  apothecary,  buying 
drugs  at  wholesale  and  compounding  and  selling 
medicines  to  their  parishioners.  Small  wonder  that 
Cotton  Mather  called  the  union  of  physic  and  piety 
an  "  Angelical  Conjunction." 

Other  professions  and  callings  joined  hands  with 
chirurgy  and  medicine.  Innkeepers,  magistrates, 
grocers,  and  schoolmasters  were  doctors.  One  sur- 
geon was  a  butcher — sadly  similar  callings  in  those 
days.  This  butcher-surgeon  was  not  Mr.  Pighogg, 
the  Plymouth  "  churregein,"  whose  unpleasant  name 
was,  I  trust,  only  the  cacographical  rendering  of  the 
good  old  English  name  Peacock. 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  357 

With  all  these  amateur  and  semi-professional  rivals, 
it  is  no  wonder  that  Giles  Firmin,  who  knew  how  to 
pull  teeth  and  bleed  and  sweat  in  a  truly  profession- 
al manner,  complained  that  he  found  physic  but  a 
**  meene  lielpe  "  in  the  new  land. 

So  vast  was  the  confidence  of  the  community  in 
some  or  any  kind  of  a  doctor,  and  in  self-doctoring, 
that  as  late  as  the  year  1721  there  was  but  one  regu- 
larly graduated  physician  in  Boston  —  Dr.  Samuel 
Douglas ;  and  it  may  be  noted  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  decided  opponents  of  inoculation  for  small-pox. 

Colonial  dames  also  boldly  tried  their  hand  at  the 
healing  art ;  the  first  two,  Anne  Hutchinson  and  Mar- 
garet Jones,  did  not  thrive  very  well  at  the  trade. 
The  banishment  of  the  former  has  oft  been  told.  The 
latter  was  hung  as  a  witch,  and  the  worst  evi- 
dence against  her  character,  the  positive  proof  of  her 
diabolical  power  was,  that  her  medicines  being  so 
simple,  they  worked  such  wonderful  cures.  At  the 
close  of  King  Philip's  War  the  Council  of  Connect- 
icut paid  Mrs.  Allyn  X20  for  her  services  to  the  sick, 
and  Mistress  Sarah  Sands  doctored  on  Block  Island. 
Sarah  Alcock,  the  wife  of  a  chirurgeon,  was  also  "  ac- 
tive in  physick ;"  and  Mistress  Whitman,  the  Marl- 
borough midwife,  visited  her  patients  on  snow-shoes, 
and  lived  to  be  seventy-eight  years  old,  too.  In  the 
Phipps  Street  Burying  Ground  in  Charlestown  is  the 
tombstone  of  a  Boston  midwife  who  died  in  1761,  aged 
seventy-six  years,  and  who,  could  we  believe  the  record 
on  the  gravestone,  "by  ye  blessing  of  God  has  brought 
into  this  world  above  130,000  children."    But  a  close 


368  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

examination  shows  that  the  number  on  the  ancient 
headstone,  through  the  mischievous  manipulation  of 
modern  hands,  has  received  a  figuie  at  either  end,  and 
the  good  old  lady  can  only  be  charged  with  three 
thousand  additions  to  wretched  humanity. 

Negroes,  and  illiterate  persons  of  all  complex- 
ions, set  up  as  doctors.  Old  Joe  Pye  and  Sabbatus 
were  famous  Indian  healers.  Indian  squaws,  such  as 
Molly  Orcutt,  sold  many  a  decoction  of  leaves  and 
barks  to  the  planters,  and,  like  Hiawatha, 

"Wandered  eastward,  wandered  westward, 
Teaching  men  the  use  of  simples, 
And  the  antidotes  for  poisons, 
And  the  cure  of  all  diseases." 

A  good  old  Connecticut  doctor  had  a  negro  servant, 
Primus,  who  rode  with  him  and  helped  him  in  his 
surgery  and  shop.  When  the  master  died.  Doctor 
Primus  started  in  to  practise  medicine  himself,  and 
proved  extraordinarily  successful  throughout  the 
county;  even  his  master's  patients  did  not  disdain 
to  employ  the  black  successor,  wishing  no  doubt  their 
wonted  bolus  and  draught. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  everyone  and  anyone 
seemed  to  be  permitted,  and  was  considered  fitted  to 
prescribe  medicine,  the  colonists  were  sharp  enough 
on  the  venders  of  quack  medicines — or,  perhaps  I 
should  say,  of  powerless  medicines — on  "runnagate 
chyrurgeons  and  physickemongers,  saltimbancoes, 
quacksalvers,  charlatans,  and  all  impostourous  empi- 
ricks."    As  early  as  1631,  one  Nicholas  Knapp  was 


DOCTOKS   AND   PATIENTS  359 

fined  and  whipped  for  pretending  "  to  cure  the  scur- 
vey  by  a  water  of  noe  worth  nor  value  which  he  sold 
att  a  very  deare  rate."  The  planters  were  terribly 
prostrated  by  scurvy,  and  doubtless  were  specially 
indignant  at  this  heartless  cheat. 

Tides  of  absurd  attempts  at  medicine,  or  rather  at 
healing,  swept  over  the  scantily  settled  New  England 
villages  in  colonial  days,  just  as  we  have  seen  in  our 
own  day,  in  our  great  cities,  the  abounding  success — 
financially — of  the  blue-glass  cure,  the  faith  cure,  and 
of  science  healing.  The  Rain  Water  Doctor  worked 
wondrous  miracles,  and  did  a  vast  and  lucrative  busi- 
ness until  he  was  unluckily  drowned  in  a  hogshead  of 
his  own  medicine  at  his  own  door.  Bishop  Berkele}^ 
in  his  pamphlet  Siris,  started  a  flourishing  tar- water 
craze,  which  lived  long  and  died  slowly.  This  cure- 
all,  like  the  preceding  aquatic  physic,  had  the  merit 
of  being  cheap.  A  quart  of  tar  steeped  for  forty-eight 
hours  in  a  gallon  of  water,  tainted  the  water  enough 
to  make  it  fit  for  dosing.  Perhaps  the  most  expansive 
swindle  was  that  of  Dr.  Perkins,  with  his  Metallic 
Tractors.  He  was  bom  in  Norwich,  Conn.,  in  1740, 
and  found  fortune  and  fame  in  his  native  land.  Still 
he  was  expelled  from  the  association  of  physicians  in 
his  own  country,  but  managed  to  establish  a  Perkinean 
Institution  in  London  with  a  fine,  imposing  list  of  ofii- 
cers  and  managers,  of  whom  Benjamin  Franklin's  son 
was  one.  He  had  poems  and  essays  and  eulogies  and 
books  written  about  him,  and  it  was  claimed  by  his 
followers  that  he  cured  one  million  and  a  half  of  suf- 
ferers.   At  any  rate,  he  managed  to  carry  off  £10,000 


360  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

of  good  Englisli  money  to  New  England.  His  won- 
derful Metallic  Tractors  were  little  slips  of  iron  and 
brass  three  inches  long,  blunt  at  one  end,  and  pointed 
at  the  other,  and  said  to  be  of  opposite  electrical  con- 
ditions. They  cost  five  guineas  a  pair.  When  drawn 
or  trailed  for  several  minutes  over  a  painful  or  dis- 
eased spot  on  the  human  frame,  they  positively  re- 
moved and  cured  all  ache,  smart,  or  soreness.  I  have 
never  doubted  they  worked  wonderful  cures  ;  so  did 
bits  of  wood,  of  lead,  of  stone,  of  earthenware,  in  the 
hands  of  scoffers,  when  the  tractorated  patients  did 
not  see  the  bits,  and  fancied  that  the  manipulator 
held  Metallic  Tractors. 

As  years  passed  on  various  useful  medicines  became 
too  much  the  vogue,  and  were  used  to  too  vast  and 
too  deleterious  an  extent,  particularly  mercury.  Many 
a  poor  salivated  patient  sacrificed  his  teeth  to  his  doc- 
tor's mercurial  doses.  One  such  toothless  sufferer,  a 
carpenter,  having  little  ready  money,  offered  to  pay 
his  physician  in  hay-rakes ;  and  he  took  a  revengeful 
delight  in  manufacturing  the  rakes  of  green,  unsea- 
soned wood.  After  a  few  days*  use  in  the  sunny 
fields,  the  doctor's  rakes  were  as  toothless  as  their 
maker. 

Physicians'  fees  were  "  meene "  enough  in  olden 
times  ;  but  sixpence  a  visit  in  Hadley  and  Northamp- 
ton in  1730,  and  only  eightpence  in  Revolutionary 
times.  A  blood-letting,  or  a  jaw-splitting  tooth-draw- 
ing cost  the  sufferer  eightpence  extra.  No  wonder  the 
doctor  cupped  and  bled  on  every  occasion.  In  ex- 
travagant Hartford  the  opulent  doctor  got  a  shilling 


DOCTORS  AND   PATIENTS  361 

a  visit.  Naturally  all  the  chirurgeons  eked  out  and 
augmented  their  scanty  fees  by  compounding  and  sell- 
ing their  own  medicines,  and  dosed  often  and  dosed 
deeply,  since  by  their  doses  they  lived.  In  many  com- 
munities a  bone-setter  had  to  be  paid  a  salary  by  the 
town  in  order  to  keep  him,  so  few  and  slight  were  his 
private  emoluments,  even  as  a  physic-monger. 

The  science  of  nursing  the  sick  was,  in  early 
days,  unknown ;  there  were  but  few  who  made 
a  profession  of  nursing,  and  those  few  were  deeply 
to  be  dreaded.  In  taking  care  of  the  sick,  as  in 
other  kindnesses,  the  neighborly  instinct,  ever  so 
keen,  so  living  in  New  England,  showed  no  lagging 
part.  For  it  is  plain  to  any  student  of  early  colonial 
days  that,  if  the  chief  foundation  of  the  New  England 
commonwealth  was  religion,  the  second  certainly  was 
neighborliness.  There  was  a  constant  exchange  of 
kindly  and  loving  attentions  between  families  and  in- 
dividuals. It  showed  itself  in  all  the  petty  details  of 
daily  life,  in  assistance  in  housework  and  in  the  field, 
in  house-raising.  Did  a  man  build  a  barn,  his  neigh- 
bors flocked  to  drive  a  pin,  to  lay  a  stone,  to  stand 
forever  in  the  edifice  as  token  of  their  friendly  good- 
will. The  most  eminent,  as  well  as  the  poorest 
neighbors,  thus  assisted.  In  nothing  was  this  neigh- 
borly feeling  more  constantly  shown  than  in  the 
friendly  custom  of  visiting  and  watching  with  the 
sick  ;  and  it  was  the  only  available  assistance.  Men 
and  women  in  this  care  and  attention  took  equal 
part.  As  in  all  other  neighborly  duties,  good  Judge 
Sewall  was  never  remiss  in  the  sick-room.    He  was 


362  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

generous  with  his  gifts  and  generous  with  his  time, 
even  to  those  humble  in  the  community.  Such  en- 
tries as  this  abound  in  his  diary :  "  Oct.  26th  1702. 
Visited  languishing  Mr.  Sam  "Whiting.  I  gave  him  2 
Balls  of  Chockalett  and  a  pound  of  Figgs."  And 
when  Mr.  Bayley  lay  ill  of  a  fever,  he  prayed  with 
him  and  took  care  of  him  through  many  a  long  night, 
and  wrote : 

"  When  I  came  away  call'd  his  wife  into  the  Next 
Chamber  and  gave  her  Two  Five  Shilling  Bits.  She  veiy 
modestly  and  kindly  accepted  them  and  said  I  had  done 
too  much  already.  I  told  her  if  the  State  of  my  family 
would  have  born  it  I  ought  to  have  watched  with  Mr. 
Bayley  as  much  as  that  came  to." 

To  others  he  gave  China  oranges,  dishes  of  marma- 
let,  Meers  Cakes,  Banberry  Cakes  ;  and  even  to  well- 
to-do  people  gave  gifts  of  money,  sometimes  specify- 
ing for  what  purpose  he  wished  the  gift  to  be  applied. 

The  universal  custom  of  praying  at  inordinate 
length  and  frequency  with  sick  persons  was  of  more 
doubtful  benefit,  though  of  equally  kind  intent.  One 
cannot  but  be  amazed  to  find  how  many  persons — 
ministers,  elders,  deacons,  and  laymen  were  allowed 
to  enter  the  sick-room  and  pray  by  the  bedside  of 
the  invalid,  thus  indeed  giving  him,  as  Sewall  said, 
"a  lift  Heavenward."  Sometimes  a  succession  of 
prayers  filled  the  entire  day. 

Judge  Sewall's  friendly  prayers  and  visits  were  not 
always  welcome.  After  visiting  sick  Mr.  Brattle  the 
Judge  writes,  but  without  any  resentment,  "  he  plainly 


DOCTORS   AND   PATIENTS  363 

told  me  that  frequent  visits  were  prejudicial  to  him, 
it  provok'd  him  to  speak  more  than  his  strength 
would  bear,  would  have  me  come  seldom."  And  on 
September  20,  1690,  he  met  with  this  reception : 

"  Mr.  Moody  and  I  went  before  the  others  came  to 
neighbor  Hurd  who  lay  dying  where  also  Mr.  Allen  came 
in.  Nurse  Hurd  told  her  husband  who  was  there  and 
what  he  had  to  say ;  whether  he  desir'd  them  to  pray 
with  him  ;  He  said  with  some  earnestness,  Hold  your 
tongue,  which  was  repeated  three  times  to  his  wives  re- 
peated entreaties ;  once  he  said  Let  me  alone  or  Be  quiet 
(whether  that  made  a  fourth  or  was  one  of  the  three  do 
not  remember)  and.  My  Spirits  are  gon.  At  last  Mi*. 
Moody  took  him  up  pretty  roundly  and  told  him  he 
might  with  some  labour  have  given  a  pertinent  answer. 
When  we  were  ready  to  come  away  Mr.  Moody  bid  him 
put  forth  a  little  Breath  to  ask  prayer,  and  said  twas  the 
last  time  had  to  speak  to  him  ;  At  last  ask'd  him,  doe  you 
desire  prayer,  shall  I  pray  with  you.  He  answered,  Ay 
for  Gods  sake  and  thank'd  Mr.  Moody  when  had  done. 
His  former  carriage  was  very  startling  and  amazing  to  us. 
About  one  at  night  he  died.  About  11  o'clock  I  supposed 
to  hear  neighbor  Mason  at  prayer  with  him  just  as  my 
wife  and  I  were  going  to  bed." 

One  cannot  but  feel  a  thrill  of  sjnnpathy  for  poor, 
dying  Hurd  on  that  hot  September  night,  fairly  hec- 
tored by  pious,  loud-voiced  neighbors  into  eternity ; 
and  can  well  believe  that  many  a  colonial  invalid  who 
lived  through  mithridate  and  rubila,  through  sweating 
and  blood-letting,  died  of  the  kindly  and  godly-inten- 
tioned  praying  of  his  neighbors. 


XV 

FUNEEAL  AND  BUEIAL  CUSTOMS 

The  earliest  New  Englanders  had  no  religious  ser- 
vices at  a  funeral.  Not  wishing  to  "confirm  the 
popish  error  that  prayer  is  to  be  used  for  the  dead  or 
over  the  dead,"  they  said  no  words,  either  of  grief,  res- 
ignation, or  faith,  but  followed  the  coffin  and  filled 
the  grave  in  silence.  Lechf  ord  has  given  us  a  picture 
of  a  funeral  in  New  England  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, which  is  full  of  simple  dignity,  if  not  of  sym- 
pathy : 

"  At  Burials  nothing  is  read,  nor  any  funeral  sermon 
made,  but  all  the  neighborhood  or  a  goodly  company  of 
them  come  together  by  tolling  of  the  bell,  and  carry  the 
dead  solemnly  to  his  grave,  and  then  stand  by  him  while 
he  is  buried.    The  ministers  are  most  commonly  present." 

As  was  the  fashion  in  England  at  that  date,  lauda- 
tory verses  and  sentences  were  fastened  to  the  bier 
or  herse.  The  name  herse  was  then  applied  to  the 
draped  catafalque  or  platform  upon  which  the  can- 
dles stood  and  the  coffin  rested,  not  as  now  the  word 


FUNERAL  AND  BURIAL  CUSTOMS  365 

hearse  to  a  carriage  for  the  conveyance  of  the  dead. 
Sewall  says  of  the  funeral  of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Shep- 
herd :  "  There  were  some  verses,  but  none  pinned ^oST 
the  Herse."  These  verses  were  often  printed  after 
the  funeral.  The  publication  of  mourning  broadsides 
and  pamphlets,  black-bordered  and  dismal,  was  a 
large  duty  of  the  early  colonial  press.  They  were 
often  decorated  gruesomely  with  skull  and  cross- 
bones,  scythes,  coffins,  and  hour-glasses,  all-seeing 
eyes  with  rakish  squints,  bow-legged  skeletons,  and 
miserable  little  rosetted  winding-sheets. 

A  writer  in  the  New  England  Courant  of  November 
12,  1722,  says : 

Of  all  the  different  species  of  poetry  now  in  use  I  find 
the  Funeral  Elegy  to  be  most  universally  admu'ed  and 
used  in  New  England.  There  is  scarce  a  plough  jogger 
or  country  cobler  that  has  read  our  Psalms  and  can  make 
two  lines  jingle,  who  has  not  once  in  his  life  at  least  ex- 
ercised his  talent  in  this  way.  Nor  is  there  one  country 
house  in  fifty  which  has  not  its  walls  garnished  with  half 
a  Score  of  these  sort  of  Poems  which  praise  the  Dead  to 
the  Life." 

When  a  Puritan  died  his  friends  conspired  in 
mournful  concert,  or  labored  individually  and  pain- 
fully, to  bring  forth  as  tributes  of  grief  and  respect, 
rhymed  elegies,  anagrams,  epitaphs,  acrostics,  epice- 
diums,  and  threnodies ;  and  singularly  enough, 
seemed  to  reserve  for  these  gloomy  tributes  their 
sole  attempt  at  facetiousness.  Ingenious  quirks  and 
puns,  painful  and  complicate  jokes  (printed  in  italics 


366  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

that  you  may  not  escape  nor  mistake  them)  bestrew 
these  funeral  verses.  If  a  man  chanced  to  have  a 
name  of  any  possible  twist  of  signification,  such  as 
Green,  Stone,  Blackman,  in  doleful  puns  did  he 
posthumously  suffer ;  and  his  friends  and  relatives 
endured  vicariously  also,  for  to  them  these  grinning 
death's-heads  of  rhymes  were  widely  distributed. 

It  was  with  a  keen  sense  of  that  humor  which 
comes,  as  Sydney  Smith  says,  from  sudden  and  unex- 
pected contrast,  that  I  read  a  heavily  bordered  sheet 
entitled  in  large  letters,  "  A  Grammarian's  Funeral." 
It  was  printed  at  the  death  of  Schoolmaster  Wood- 
mancey,  and  was  so  much  admired  that  it  was 
brought  forth  again  at  the  demise  of  Ezekiel 
Cheever,  who  died  in  1708  after  no  less  than  seventy 
years  of  school-teaching.  I  think  we  may  truly  say 
of  him,  teaching  at  ninety-three  years  of  age, 


With  throttling  hands  of  death  at  strife, 
Ground  he  at  grammar." 


For  the  consideration  and  investigation  of  Brown- 
ing Societies,  I  give  a  few  lines  from  this  New  Eng- 
land conception  of  a  Grammarian's  Funeral. 


Eight  parts  of  Speech  This  Day  wear  Mourning  Gowns, 
Declined  Verbs,  Pronouns,  Participles,  and  Nouns. 
The  Substantive  seeming  the  limbed  best 
Would  set  an  hand  to  bear  him  to  his  Rest 
The  Adjective  with  very  grief  did  say 
Hold  me  by  Strength  or  I  shall  faint  away. 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL  CUST03IS  367 

Great  Honour  was  confeiTed  on  Covjugations 
They  were  to  follow  next  to  the  Relations 

But  Lego  said,  by  me  his  got  his  Skill 
And  therefore  next  the  Herse  I  follow  will 
A  Doleful  Day  for  Verbs  they  look  so  Moody 
They  drove  Spectators  to  a  mournful  Study." 

I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that  this  funeral  poem 
may  have  been  learned  by  heart  by  succeeding  gen- 
erations of  Boston  scholars,  as  a  sort  of  grammatical 
memory-rhyme— a  mournful  study,  indeed. 

Funeral  sermons  were  also  printed,  with  trappings 
of  sombreness,  black-bordered,  with  death's-heads  and 
crossbones  on  the  covers.  These  sermons  were  not, 
however,  preached  at  the  time  of  the  funeral,  save 
in  exceptional  cases.  It  is  said  that  one  was  deliv- 
ered at  the  funeral  of  President  Chauncey  in  1671. 
Cotton  Mather  preached  one  at  the  funeral  of  Fitz- 
John  Winthrop  in  1707,  and  another  at  the  funeral 
of  "VVaitstill  Winthrop  in  1717.  Gradually  there  crept 
in  the  custom  of  having  suitable  prayers  at  the  house 
before  the  burial  procession  formed,  the  first  instance 
being  probably  at  the  funeral  of  Pastor  Adams,  of  Eox- 
bury,  in  1683.  Sometimes  a  short  address  was  given 
at  the  grave,  as  when  Jonathan  Alden  was  buried  at 
Duxbury,  in  1697.  The  Boston  News  Letter  of  Decem- 
ber 31,  1730,  notes  a  prayer  at  a  funeral,  and  says : 
"  Tho'  a  custom  in  the  Country-Towns  'tis  a  Singular 
instance  in  this  Place,  but  it*s  wish'd  may  prove  a 
Leading  Example  to  the  General  Practice  of  so 
Christian  and  Decent  a  Custom."     Whitefield  wrote 


368  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

disparagingly  of  the  custom  of  not  speaking  at  the 
grave. 

We  see  Judge  Sewall  mastering  his  grief  at  his 
mother's  burial,  delaying  for  a  few  moments  the  fill- 
ing of  the  grave,  and  speaking  some  very  proper 
words  of  eulogy  "  with  passion  and  tears."  He  jeal- 
ously notes,  however,  when  the  Episcopal  burial  ser- 
vice is  given  in  Boston,  saying  :  "  The  Office  for  the 
dead  is  a  Lying  bad  office,  makes  no  difference  be- 
tween the  precious  and  the  Yile." 

There  were,  as  a  rule,  two  sets  of  bearers  appointed ; 
under-bearers,  usually  young  men,  who  carried  the 
coffin  on  a  bier ;  and  pall-bearers,  men  of  age,  dignity, 
or  consanguinity,  who  held  the  corners  of  the  pall 
which  was  spread  over  the  coffin  and  hung  down  over 
the  heads  and  bodies  of  the  under-bearers.  As  the 
coffin  was  sometimes  carried  for  a  long  distance,  there 
were  frequently  appointed  a  double  set  of  under- 
bearers,  to  share  the  burden.  I  have  been  told  that 
mort-stones  were  set  by  the  wayside  in  some  towns, 
upon  which  the  bearers  could  rest  the  heavy  coffin 
for  a  short  time  on  their  way  to  the  burial-place ; 
but  I  find  no  record  or  proof  of  this  statement.  The 
pall,  or  bier-cloth,  or  mort-cloth,  as  it  was  called, 
was  usually  bought  and  owned  by  the  town,  and 
was  of  heavy  pui*ple,  or  black  broadcloth,  or  vel- 
vet. It  often  was  kept  with  the  bier  in  the  porch  of 
the  meeting-house  ;  but  in  some  communities  the 
bier,  a  simple  shelf  or  table  of  wood  on  four  legs 
about  a  foot  and  a  half  long,  was  placed  over  the 
freshly  fiUed-in  grave  and  left  sombrely  waiting  till 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  369 

it  was  needed  to  carry  another  coffin  to  the  burial- 
place.  In  many  towns  there  were  no  gravediggers  ; 
sympathizing  friends  made  the  simple  coffin  and  dug 
the  grave. 

In  Londonderry,  N.  H.,  and  neighboring  towns 
that  had  been  settled  by  Scotch-Irish  planters,  the 
announcement  of  a  death  was  a  signal  for  cessa- 
tion of  daily  work  throughout  the  neighborhood. 
Kindly  assistance  was  at  once  given  at  the  house 
of  mourning.  Women  flocked  to  do  the  household 
work  and  to  prepare  the  funeral  feast.  Men  brought 
gifts  of  food,  or  household  necessities,  and  rendered 
all  the  advice  and  help  that  was  needed.  A  gather- 
ing was  held  the  night  before  the  funeral,  which  in 
feasting  and  drmking  partook  somewhat  of  the  nature 
of  an  Irish  wake.  Much  New  England  rum  was  con- 
sumed at  this  gathering,  and  also  before  the  proces- 
sion to  the  grave,  and  after  the  interment  the  whole 
party  returned  to  the  house  for  an  "  arval,"  and  drank 
again.  The  funeral  rum-bill  was  often  an  embarrass- 
ing and  hampering  expense  to  a  bereaved  family  for 
years. 

This  liberal  serving  of  intoxicating  liquor  at  a  fun- 
eral was  not  peculiar  to  these  New  Hampshire  towns, 
nor  to  the  Scotch-Irish,  but  prevailed  in  every  settle- 
ment in  the  colonies  until  the  temperance-awakening 
days  of  this  century.  Throughout  New  England  bills 
for  funeral  baked  meats  were  large  in  items  of  rum, 
cider,  whiskey,  lemons,  sugar,  spices. 

To  show  how  universally  liquor  was  served  to  all 
who  had  to  do  with  a  funeral,  let  me  give  the  bill 
24 


370  OLD   NEW  ENGLAND 

for  the  mortuary  expenses  of  David  Porter,  of  Hart- 
ford, wlio  was  drowned  in  1678. 

**  By  a  pint  of  liquor  for  those  who  dived  for  him. .  Is. 

By  a  quart  of  liquor  for  those  who  bro't  him  home.  2*. 

By  two  quarts  of  wine  &  1  gallon  of  cyder  to  juiy 

of  inquest 55. 

By  8  gallons  &  3  qts.  wine  for  funeral £1  15s. 

By  Barrel  cyder  for  funeral 16s. 

1  Coffin 12s. 

Windeing  sheet 18s." 

Even  town  paupers  had  two  or  three  gallons  of 
rum  or  a  barrel  of  cider  given  by  the  town  to  serve 
as  speeding  libations  at  their  unmoumed  funerals. 
The  liquor  at  the  funeral  of  a  minister  was  usually 
paid  for  by  the  church  or  town — often  interchange- 
able terms  for  the  same  body.  The  parish  frequently 
gave,  also,  as  in  the  case  of  the  death  of  Kev.  Job 
Strong,  of  Portsmouth,  in  1751,  "  the  widow  of  our 
deceased  pasture  a  full  suit  of  mourning." 

A  careful,  and  above  all  an  experienced  committee 
was  appointed  to  superintend  the  mixing  of  the  fu- 
neral grog  or  punch,  and  to  attend  to  the  liberal  and 
frequent  dispensing  thereof. 

Ha^vthorne  was  so  impressed  with  the  enjoyable 
reunion  New  Englanders  found  in  funerals  that  he 
wrote  of  them  : 

"  They  were  the  only  class  of  scenes,  so  far  as  my  in- 
vestigation has  taught  me,  in  which  our  ancestors  were 
wont  to  steep  their  tough  old  hearts  in  wine  and  strong 
drink    and   indulge   in  an  outbreak  of    grisly   jollity. 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  371 

Look  back  through  all  the  social  customs  of  New  England 
in  the  first  century  of  her  existence  and  read  all  her  traits 
of  character,  and  find  one  occasion  other  than  a  funeral 
feast  where  jollity  was  sanctioned  by  universal  practice. 
.  .  .  Well,  old  friends  !  Pass  on  with  your  burden  of 
mortality  and  lay  it  in  the  tomb  with  jolly  hearts.  Peo- 
ple should  be  permitted  to  enjoy  themselves  in  their  own 
fashion  ;  every  man  to  his  taste — but  New  England  must 
have  been  a  dismal  abode  for  the  man  of  pleasure  when 
the  only  boon-companion  was  Death." 

This  picture  has  been  given  by  Sargent  of  country 
funerals  in  the  days  of  his  youth  : 

"  When  I  was  a  boy,  and  was  at  an  academy  in  the 
country,  everybody  went  to  everybody's  funeral  in  the  vil- 
lage. The  population  was  small,  funerals  rare  ;  the  pre- 
ceptor's absence  would  have  excited  remark,  and  the  boys 
were  dismissed  for  the  funeral.  A  table  with  liquors  was 
always  provided.  Every  one,  as  he  entered,  took  off  his 
hat  with  his  left  hand,  smoothed  down  his  hair  with  his 
right,  walked  up  to  the  coffin,  gazed  upon  the  corpse, 
made  a  crooked  face,  passed  on  to  the  table,  took  a  glass 
of  his  favorite  liquor,  went  forth  upon  the  plat  before  the 
house  and  talked  politics,  or  of  the  new  road,  or  compared 
crops,  or  swapped  heifers  or  horses  until  it  was  time  to 
lift.  A  clergyman  told  me  that  when  settled  at  Concord, 
N.  H.,  he  officiated  at  the  funeral  of  a  little  boy.  The 
body  was  borne  in  a  chaise,  and  six  little  nominal  pall- 
bearers, the  oldest  not  thirteen,  walked  by  the  side  of  the 
vehicle.  Before  they  left  the  house  a  sort  of  master  of 
ceremonies  took  them  to  the  table  and  mixed  a  tumbler 
of  gin,  water,  and  sugar  for  each." 


372  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

It  was  a  hard  struggle  against  established  customs 
and  ideas  of  hospitality,  and  even  of  health,  when  the 
use  of  liquor  at  funerals  was  abolished.  Old  people 
sadly  deplored  the  present  and  regretted  the  past. 
One  worthy  old  gentleman  said,  with  much  bitter- 
ness :  "  Temperance  has  done  for  funerals." 

As  soon  as  the  larger  cities  began  to  accrue  wealth, 
the  parentations  of  men  and  women  of  high  station 
were  celebrated  with  much  pomp  and  dignity,  if 
not  with  religious  exercises.  Yolleys  were  fired 
over  the  freshly  made  grave — even  of  a  woman. 
A  barrel  and  a  half  of  powder  was  consumed  to  do 
proper  honor  to  Winthrop,  the  chief  founder  of 
Massachusetts.  At  the  funeral  of  Deputy-Governor 
Francis  Willoughby  eleven  companies  of  militia  were 
in  attendance,  and  "  with  the  doleful  noise  of  trumpets 
and  drums,  in  their  mourning  posture,  three  thunder- 
ing volleys  of  shot  were  discharged,  answered  with 
the  loud  roarings  of  great  guns  rending  the  heavens 
with  noise  at  the  loss  of  so  great  a  man."  When  Gov- 
ernor Leverett  died,  in  1679,  the  bearers  carried  ban- 
ners. The  principal  men  of  the  town  bore  the  armor 
of  the  deceased,  from  helmet  to  spur,  and  the  Govern- 
or's horse  was  led  with  banners.  The  funeral-record- 
ing Sewall  has  left  us  many  a  picture  of  the  pomp  of 
burial.  Colonel  Samuel  Shrimpton  was  buried  '*  with 
Arms"  in  1697,  "Ten  Companies,  No  Herse  nor 
Trumpet  but  a  horse  Led.  Mourning  Coach  also  & 
Horses  in  Mourning,  Scutcheons  on  their  sides  and 
Deaths  Heads  on  their  foreheads."  Fancy  those 
coach-horses  with  gloomy  death's-heads  on  their  fore- 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL  CUSTOMS      '       373 

heads.  At  the  funeral  of  Lady  Andros,  which  was 
held  in  church,  six  "  mourning  women  "  sat  in  front 
of  the  draped  pulpit,  and  the  hearse  was  drawn  by 
six  horses.  This  English  fashion  of  paid  mourners 
was  not  common  among  sincere  New  Englanders; 
Lady  Andros  was  a  Church  of  England  woman,  not  a 
Puritan.  The  cloth  from  the  pulpit  was  usually 
given,  after  the  burial,  to  the  minister.  Li  1736  the 
Boston  Neivs  Letter  tells  of  the  pulpit  and  the  pew  of 
the  deceased  being  richly  draped  and  adorned  with 
escutcheons  at  a  funeral.  Thus  were  New  England 
men,  to  quote  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  splendid  in  ashes, 
and  pompous  in  the  grave." 

Many  local  customs  prevailed.  In  Hartford  and 
neighboring  towns  all  ornaments,  mirrors,  and  pict- 
ures were  muffled  with  napkins  and  cloths  at  the 
time  of  the  funerals,  and  sometimes  the  window-shut- 
ters were  kept  closed  in  the  front  of  the  house  and 
tied  together  with  black  for  a  year,  as  was  the  fashion 
in  Philadelphia. 

Hawthorne  tells  us  that  at  the  death  of  Sir  Will- 
iam Pepperell  the  entire  house  was  hung  with  black, 
and  all  the  family  portraits  were  covered  with  black 
crape. 

The  order  of  procession  to  the  grave  was  a  matter 
of  much  etiquette.  High  respect  and  equally  deep 
slights  might  be  rendered  to  mourners  in  the  place 
assigned.  Usually  some  magistrate  or  person  of 
dignity  walked  with  the  widow.  Judge  Sewall  often 
speaks  of  "  leading  the  widow  in  a  mourning  cloak.'* 

One  great  expense  of  a  funeral  was  the  gloves.     In 


374  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

some  communities  these  were  sent  as  an  approved 
and  elegant  form  of  invitation  to  relatives  and  friends 
and  dignitaries,  whose  presence  was  desired.  Occa- 
sionally, a  printed  "  invitation  to  follow  the  corps  " 
was  also  sent.  One  for  the  funeral  of  Sir  "William 
Phipps  is  still  in  existence — a  fantastically  gloomy 
document.  In  the  case  of  a  funeral  of  any  person 
prominent  in  State,  Church,  or  society,  vast  numbers 
of  gloves  were  disbursed ;  "  none  of  'em  of  any  fig- 
ure but  what  had  gloves  sent  to  'em."  At  the  funeral 
of  the  wife  of  Governor  Belcher,  in  1736,  over  one 
thousand  pairs  of  gloves  were  given  away ;  at  the 
funeral  of  Andrew  Faneuil  three  thousand  pairs  ;  the 
number  frequently  ran  up  to  several  hundred.  Dif- 
ferent qualities  of  gloves  were  x^resented  at  the  same 
funeral  to  persons  of  different  social  circles,  or  of 
varied  degrees  of  consanguinity  or  acquaintance. 
Frequently  the  orders  for  these  vales  were  given  in 
wills.  As  early  as  1633  Samuel  Fuller,  of  Plymouth, 
directed  in  his  will  that  his  sister  was  to  have  gloves 
worth  twelve  shillings  ;  Governor  Winthrop  and  his 
children  each  "  a  paire  of  gloves  of  five  shilling ; " 
while  plebeian  Kebecca  Prime  had  to  be  contented 
with  a  cheap  pair  worth  two  shillings  and  sixpence. 
The  under-bearers  who  carried  the  coffin  were  usually 
given  different  and  cheaper  gloves  from  the  pall- 
bearers. We  find  seven  pairs  of  gloves  given  at  a 
pauper's  funeral,  and  not  under  the  head  of  "  Ex- 
trodny  Chearges  "  either. 

Of  course  the  minister  was  always  given  gloves. 
They  were  showered  on  him  at  weddings,  christen- 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  375 

ings,  funerals.  Andrew  Eliot,  of  the  North  Church, 
in  Boston,  kept  a  record  of  the  gloves  and  rings 
which  he  received ;  and,  incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
in  thirty-two  years  he  was  given  two  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  forty  pairs  of  gloves.  Though  he  had 
eleven  children,  he  and  his  family  could  scarcely 
wear  them  all,  so  he  sold  them  through  kindly  Boston 
milliners,  and  kept  a  careful  account  of  the  transac- 
tion, of  the  lamb's-wool  gloves,  the  kid  gloves,  the 
long  gloves — which  were  probably  Madam  Eliot's. 
He  received  between  six  and  seven  hundred  dollars 
for  the  gloves,  and  a  goodly  sum  also  for  funeral 
rings. 

Various  kinds  of  gloves  are  specified  as  suitable 
for  mourning ;  for  instance,  in  the  Boston  Indepen- 
dent Advertiser  in  1749,  "  Black  Shammy  Gloves  and 
White  Glazed  Lambs  Wool  Gloves  suitable  for  Fu- 
nerals." White  gloves  were  as  often  given  as  black, 
and  purple  gloves  also.  Good  specimens  of  old 
mourning  gloves  have  been  preserved  in  the  cabinets 
of  the  Worcester  Society  of  Antiquity. 

At  the  funeral  of  Thomas  Thornhill  "  17  pair  of 
White  Gloves  at  XI 155.  6(i.,  31^  yard  Corle  for  Scarfs 
X3  105.  lOK,  and  Black  and  White  Kibbin "  were 
paid  for.  In  1737  Sir  William  Pepperell  sent  to 
England  for  "  4  pieces  Hat  mourning  and  2  pieces 
of  Cyprus  or  Hood  mourning."  This  hat  mourning 
took  the  form  of  long  weepers,  which  were  worn  on 
the  hat  at  the  fimeral,  and  as  a  token  of  respect  after- 
ward by  persons  who  were  not  relatives  of  the  de- 
ceased.     Judge   Sewall   was   always   punctilious  in 


376  OLD  NEW   ENGLAND 

thus  honoring  the  dead  in  his  community.     On  May 
2,  1709,  he  writes  thus  : 

"  Being  artillery  day  and  Mr.  Higginson  dead  I  put  on 
my  mourning  Rapier  and  put  a  mourning  ribbon  in  my 
httle  Cane." 

Rings  were  given  at  funerals,  especially  in  wealthy 
families,  to  near  relatives  and  persons  of  note  in  the 
community.  Sewall  records  in  his  diary,  in  the  years 
from  1687  to  1725,  the  receiving  of  no  less  than  fifty- 
seven  mourning  rings.  We  6an  well  believe  the  story 
told  of  Doctor  Samuel  Buxton,  of  Salem,  who  died  in 
1758,  aged  eighty-one  years,  that  he  left  to  his  heirs 
a  quart  tankard  full  of  mourning  rings  which  he  had 
received  at  funerals ;  and  that  Rev.  Andrew  Eliot 
had  a  mugful.  At  one  Boston  funeral,  in  1738, 
over  two  hundred  rings  were  given  away.  At  Wait- 
still  Winthrop's  funeral  sixty  rings,  worth  over  a 
pound  apiece,  were  given  to  friends.  The  entire  ex- 
pense of  the  latter-named  funeral — scutcheons,  hatch- 
ments, scarves,  gloves,  rings,  bell-tolling,  tailor's  bills, 
etc.,  was  over  six  hundred  pounds.  This  amounted 
to  one-fifth  of  the  entire  estate  of  the  deceased  gentle- 
man. 

These  mourning  rings  were  of  gold,  usually  en- 
amelled in  black,  or  black  and  white.  They  were 
frequently  decorated  with  a  death's-head,  or  with  a 
coffin  with  a  full-length  skeleton  lying  in  it,  or  with 
a  winged  skull.  Sometimes  they  held  a  framed  lock 
of  hair  of  the  deceased  friend.  Sometimes  the  ring 
was  shaped  like  a  serpent  with  his  tail  in  his  mouth. 


FUNERAL   AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  377 

Many  bore  a  posy.  In  the  Boston  News  Letter  of  Oc- 
tober 30,  1742,  was  advertised:  "Mourning  Bing 
lost  with  the  Posy  Virtue  &  Love  is  From  Above." 
Here  is  another  advertisement  from  the  Boston  Even- 
ing Post  : 

**  Escaped  unluckily  from  me 
A  Large  Gold  Ring,  a  Little  Key ; 
The  Ring  had  Death  engraved  upon  it ; 
The  Owners  Name  inscribed  within  it ; 
Wlio  finds  and  brings  the  same  to  me 
Shall  generously  rewarded  be." 

A  favorite  motto  for  these  rings  was  :  "  Death  parts 
United  Hearts."  Another  was  the  legend :  "  Death 
conquers  all ;  "  another,  "  Prepare  for  Death ; "  still 
another,  "  Prepared  be  To  follow  me."  Other  funeral 
rings  bore  a  family  crest  in  black  enamel. 

Goldsmiths  kept  these  mourning  rings  constantly 
on  hand.  "Deaths  Heads  Bings"  and  "Burying 
Bings"  appear  in  many  newspaper  advertisements. 
When  bought  for  use  the  name  or  initials  of  the 
dead  person,  and  the  date  of  his  death,  were  engraved 
upon  the  ring.  This  was  called  fashioning.  It  is 
also  evident  from  existing  letters  and  bills  that  orders 
were  sent  by  bereaved  ones  to  friends  residing  at  a 
distance  to  purchase  and  wear  mourning  rings  in 
memory  of  the  dead,  and  send  the  bills  to  the  heirs 
or  the  principals  of  the  mourning  family.  Thus,  after 
the  death  of  Andrew,  son  of  Sir  William  Pepperell, 
Mr.  Kjlby,  of  London,  wrote  to  the  father  that  he 
accepted  "  that  melancholy  token  of  y'r  regard  to 
Mrs.  K.  and  myself  at  the  expense  of  four  guineas  in 


378  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

the  whole.  But,  as  is  not  unusual  here  on  such 
occasions,  Mrs.  K.  has,  at  her  own  expense,  added 
some  sparks  of  diamonds  to  some  other  mournful  or- 
naments to  the  ring,  which  she  intends  to  wear." 

It  is  very  evident  that  old  New  Englanders  looked 
with  much  eagerness  to  receiving  a  funeral  ring  at 
the  death  of  a  friend,  and  in  old  diaries,  almanacs, 
and  note-books  such  entries  as  this  are  often  seen  : 
"Made  a  ring  at  the  funeral,"  "A  death's-head  ring 
made  at  the  funeral  of  so  and  so ; "  or,  as  Judge 
Sewall  wrote,  "  Lost  a  ring  "  by  not  attending  the 
funeral.  The  will  of  Abigail  Eopes,  in  1775,  gives 
to  her  grandson  "  a  gold  ring  I  made  at  his  father's 
death; "  and  again,  "  a  gold  ring  made  when  my  bro. 
died." 

As  with  gloves,  rings  of  different  values  were  giv- 
en to  relatives  of  different  degrees  of  consanguinity, 
and  to  friends  of  different  stations  in  life ;  much  tact 
had  to  be  shown,  else  much  offence  might  be  taken. 

I  do  not  know  how  long  the  custom  of  giving 
mourning  rings  obtained  in  New  England.  Some 
are  in  existence  dated  1812,  but  were  given  at  the 
funeral  of  aged  persons  who  may  have  left  orders 
to  their  descendants  to  cling  to  the  fashion  of  their 
youth. 

A  very  good  collection  of  mourning  rings  may  be 
seen  at  the  rooms  of  the  Essex  Institute  in  Salem, 
and  that  society  has  also  published  a  pamphlet  giving 
a  list  of  such  rings  known  to  be  in  existence  in 
Salem. 

As  years  passed  on  a  strong  feeling  sprang  up 


funp:ral  and  burial  customs  379 

against  these  gifts  and  against  the  excessive  wearing 
of  mourning  garments  because  burdensome  in  ex- 
pense. Judge  Sewall  notes,  in  1721,  the  first  public 
funeral  "without  scarfs."  In  1741  it  was  ordered 
by  Massachusetts  Provincial  Enactment  that  "no 
Scarves,  Gloves  (except  six  pair  to  the  bearers  and 
one  pair  to  each  minister  of  the  church  or  congre- 
gation where  any  deceased  person  belongs),  "Wine, 
Rum,  or  rings  be  allowed  to  be  given  at  any  fu- 
neral upon  the  penalty  of  fifty  pounds."  The  Con- 
necticut Courant  of  October  24,  1764,  has  a  letter 
from  a  Boston  correspondent  which  says,  "It  is  now 
out  of  fashion  to  put  on  mourning  for  nearest  rel- 
atives, which  will  make  a  saving  to  this  town  of 
£20,000  per  annum."  It  also  states  that  a  funeral 
had  been  held  at  Charlestown  at  which  no  mourn- 
ing had  been  worn.  At  that  of  Ellis  Callender 
in  the  same  year,  the  chief  mourner  wore  in  black 
only  bonnet,  gloves,  ribbons,  and  handkerchief.  Let- 
ters are  in  existence  from  Boston  merchants  to  Eng- 
lish agents  rebuking  the  latter  for  sending  mourning 
goods,  such  as  crapes,  "which  are  not  worn."  A 
newly  bom  and  fast-growing  spirit  of  patriotic  revolt 
gave  added  force  to  the  reform.  Boston  voted,  in  Oc- 
tober, 1767,  "  not  to  use  any  mourning  gloves  but  what 
are  manufactured  here,"  and  other  towns  passed  simi- 
lar resolutions.  It  was  also  suggested  that  American 
mourning  gloves  be  stamped  with  a  patriotic  emblem. 
In  1788  a  fine  of  twenty  shillings  was  imposed  on  any 
person  who  gave  scarfs,  gloves,  rings,  wine,  or  rum  at 
a  funeral ;  who  bought  any  new  mourning  apparel  to 


380  OLD  NFM  ENGLAND 

wear  at  or  after  a  funeral,  save  a  crape  arm-band  if  a 
masculine  mourner,  or  black  bonnet,  fan,  gloves,  and 
ribbons  if  a  woman.  This  law  could  never  have  been 
rigidly  enforced,  for  much  gloomy  and  ostentatious 
pomp  obtained  in  the  larger  towns  even  to  our  own 
day.  "From  the  tombs  a  mournful  sound"  seemed 
to  be  fairly  a  popular  sound,  and  the  long  funeral  pro- 
cessions, always  taking  care  to  pass  the  Town  House, 
churches,  and  other  public  buildings,  obstructed 
travel,  and  men  were  appointed  in  each  town  by  the 
selectmen  to  see  that  "  free  passage  in  the  streets  be 
kept  open."  Funerals  were  forbidden  to  be  held  on 
the  Lord's  Day,  because  it  profaned  the  sacred  day, 
through  the  vast  concourse  of  children  and  servants 
that  followed  the  coffin  through  the  streets. 

Some  attempt  was  made  to  regulate  funeral  ex- 
penses. In  Salem  a  tolling  of  the  bell  could  cost  but 
eightpence,  and  ' '  the  sextons  are  desired  to  toll  the 
bells  but  four  strokes  in  a  minute."  The  undertakers 
could  charge  but  eight  shillings  for  borrowing  chairs, 
waiting  on  the  pall-holders,  and  notifying  relatives  to 
attend. 

The  early  gTaves  were  frequently  clustered,  were 
even  crowded  in  irregular  groups  in  the  churchyard ; 
and  in  larger  towns,  the  dead — especially  persons  of 
dignity  —  were  buried,  as  in  England,  under  the 
church.  Sargent,  in  his  "  Dealings  with  the  Dead," 
speaks  at  length  of  the  latter  custom,  which  prevailed 
to  an  inordinate  extent  in  Boston.  In  smaller  settle- 
ments some  out-of-the-way  spot  was  chosen  for  a 
common  burial-place,  in  barren  pasture  or  on  lonely 


FUNERAL  AND  BURIAL  CUSTOMS  381 

hillside,  thus  forcibly  proving  the  well-known  lines 
of  Whittier, 

**  Our  vales  are  sweet  with  fern  and  rose, 
Our  hills  are  maple  crowned, 
But  not  from  them  our  fathers  chose 
The  village  burial  ground. 

"The  dreariest  spot  in  all  the  land 
To  Death  they  set  apart ; 
With  scanty  grace  from  Nature's  hand 
And  none  from  that  of  Art." 

To  the  natural  loneliness  of  the  country  burial-place 
and  to  its  inevitable  sadness,  is  now  too  frequently  add- 
ed the  gloomy  and  depressing  evidence  of  human  neg- 
lect. Briers  and  weeds  grow  in  tangled  thickets 
over  the  forgotten  graves;  birch-trees  and  barberry 
bushes  spring  up  unchecked.  In  one  a  thriving 
grove  of  lilac  bushes  spreads  its  dusty  shade  from 
wall  to  wall.  Winter -killed  shrubs  of  flowering 
almond  or  snowballs,  planted  in  tender  memory, 
stand  now  withered  and  unheeded,  and  the  few 
straggling  garden  flowers — crimson  phlox  or  single 
hollyhocks — that  still  live  only  painfully  accent  the 
loneliness  by  showing  that  this  now  forgotten  spot 
was  once  loved,  visited,  and  cared  for. 

In  many  cases  the  worn  gravestone  lies  forlornly 
face  dowTiward ;  sometimes, 

"  The  slab  has  sunk ;    the  head  declined, 
And  left  the  rails  a  wreck  behind. 
No  names;   you  trace  a  *6' — a  *7,* 
Part  of  'affliction'  and  of  'Heaven.* 


382  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

And  then  in  letters  sharp  and  clear, 

You  read — O  Irony  austere  ! — 

*Tho'  lost  to  Sight,  to  Memory  dear.'** 

"  Truly  our  fathers  find  their  graves  in  our  short 
memories,  and  sadly  show  us  how  we  may  be  buried 
in  our  survivors.'  "  Still,  this  neglect  and  oblivion  is 
just  as  satisfactory  as  was  the  officious  "  deed  with- 
out a  name  "  done  in  orderly  Boston,  where,  in  the 
first  half  of  this  century,  a  precise  Superintendent 
of  Graveyards  and  his  army  of  assistants — what 
Charles  Lamb  called  "  sapient  trouble-tombs " — 
straightened  out  mathematically  all  the  old  burial- 
places,  levelled  the  earth,  and  set  in  trim  military- 
rows  the  old  slate  headstones,  regardless  of  the 
irregular  clusters  of  graves  and  their  occupants. 

And  there  in  Boston  the  falsifying  old  headstones 
still  stand,  fixed  in  new  places,  but  marking  no  coffins 
or  honored  bones  beneath;  the  only  true  words  of 
their  inscriptions  being  the  opening  ones  "Here 
lies,"  and  the  motto  that  they  repeat  derisively  to 
each  other — "As  you  are  now  so  once  was  I." 

In  many  communities  each  family  had  its  own  bury- 
ing-place  in  some  corner  of  the  home  farm,  some- 
times at  the  foot  of  garden  or  orchard.  Such  is  no- 
ticeably the  case  throughout  Narragansett ;  almost 
every  farm  has  a  grave-yard,  now  generally  unused  and 
deserted.  Sometimes  the  burying-place  is  enclosed 
by  a  high  mossy  stone  wall,  often  it  is  overgrown  with 
dense  sombre  firs  or  hemlocks,  or  half  shaded  with 
airy  locust-trees.     Beautifully  ideal  and  touching  is 


FUNERAL   AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  383 

the  thought  of  these  old  Narragansett  planters  rest- 
ing with  their  wives  and  children  in  the  ground  they 
so  dearly  loved  and  so  faithfully  worked  for. 

A  vast  similarity  of  design  existed  in  the  early 
gravestones.  Originality  of  inscription,  carving,  size, 
or  material  was  evidently  frowned  upon  as  frivolous, 
undignified,  and  eccentric  —  even  disrespectful.  A 
few  of  the  early  settlers  used  freestone  or  sienite,  or  a 
native  porphyritic  green  stone  called  beech-bowlder. 
Sandstone  was  rarely  employed,  for  though  easily 
carved,  it  as  easily  yielded  to  New  England  frosts 
and  storms.  A  hard,  dark,  flinty  slate-stone  from 
North  Wales  was  commonly  used,  a  stone  so  hard 
and  so  enduring  that  when  our  modem  granite  and 
marble  monuments  are  crumbled  in  the  dust  I  be- 
lieve these  old  slate  headstones  still  will  speak  their 
warning  words  of  many  centuries. 

"  As  I  am  now  so  you  shall  be, 
Prepare  for  Death  &  follow  me.*' 

These  stones  were  imported  from  England  ready 
carved.  A  high  duty  was  placed  on  them,  and  a 
Boston  sea  captain  endeavored  and  was  caught  in  the 
attempt  to  bring  into  port,  free  of  duty,  for  one  of 
his  friends,  one  of  these  carved  slate  gravestones,  by 
entering  it  as  a  winding-sheet.  It  is  one  of  the  cu- 
riosities of  New  England  commercial  enterprises,  that 
for  many  years  gravestones  should  have  been  im- 
ported to  New  England,  a  land  that  fairly  bristles 
with  stone  and  rock  thrusting  itself  through  the  earth 
and  waiting  to  be  carved. 


384  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  Welsh  stones  were  made  of  a  universal  pat- 
tern— a  carved  top  with  a  space  enclosing  a  miserable 
death's  or  winged  cherub's  head  as  a  heading,  a  bor- 
der of  scrolls  down  either  side  of  the  inscription,  and 
rarely  a  design  at  the  base.  Weeping  willows  and 
urns  did  not  appear  in  the  carving  at  the  top  until 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  fought  hard 
with  the  grinning  cherub's  head  until  this  century, 
when  both  were  supplanted  by  a  variety  of  designs — 
a  clock-face,  hour-glass,  etc.  Capital  letters  were 
used  wholly  in  the  inscriptions  until  Revolutionary 
times,  and  even  after  were  mixed  with  Roman  text 
with  so  little  regard  for  any  printer's  law  that,  at  a 
little  distance,  many  a  New  England  tombstone  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  past  century  seems  to  be  carven 
in  hieroglyphics. 

Special  families  in  New  England  seem  to  have  ap- 
propriated special  verses  as  epitaphs,  evidently  be- 
cause of  the  rhyme  with  the  surname.  Thus  the 
Jones  family  were  properly  proud  of  this  family 
rhyme : 

"  Beneath  this  Ston's 
Int'r'd  the  Bon's 
Ah  Frail  Eemains 
Of  Lieut  Noah  Jones  " — 

or  Mary  Jones  or  William  Jones,  as  the  case  might 
be. 

The  Noyes  family  delighted  in  these  lines  : 

"  You  children  of  the  name  of  Noyes 
Make  Jesus  Christ  yo'r  only  choyse." 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  385 

The  Tutes  and  Shutes  and  Boots  began  their  epi- 
taphs thus : 

"  Here  lies  cut  down  like  unripe  fruit 
The  wife  of  Deacon  Amos  Shute." 

Gershom  Root  was  "  cut  down  like  unripe  fruit "  at 
the  fully  mellowed  age  of  seventy-three. 

A  curiously  incomprehensible  epitaph  is  this, 
which  always  strikes  me  afresh,  upon  each  penisal,  as 
a  sort  of  mortuary  conundrum  : 

"  O  !  Happy  Probationer  ! 
Accepted  without  being  Exercised." 

Sometimes  an  old  epitaph  will  be  found  of  such 
impressive  though  simple  language  that  it  clings 
long  in  the  memory.  Such  is  this  verse  of  gentle 
quaintness  over  the  grave  of  a  tender  Puritan  blos- 
som, the  child  of  an  early  settler : 

*'  Submit  Submitted  to  her  heavenly  Kinge 
Being  a  flower  of  that  Aeternal  Spring 
She  died  at  laste  in  Heaven  to  waite 
The  Yeare  was  sixteen  hundred  48." 

Another  of  unusual  beauty  and  sentiment  is  this  : 

"  I  came  in  the  morning — it  was  Spring 
And  I  smiled. 
I  walked  oiit  at  noon— it  was  Summer 

And  I  was  glad. 
25 


386  OLD   NEW   ENGLAND 

I  sat  me  down  at  even — it  was  Autumn 
And  I  was  sad. 

I  laid  me  down  at  night — it  was  "Winter 
And  I  slept." 

Collections  of  curious  old  epitaphs  have  been  made 
and  printed,  but  seem  dull  and  colorless  on  the  print- 
ed page,  and  the  warning  words  seem  to  lose  their 
power  unless  seen  in  the  sad  graveyard,  where, 
"silently  expressing  old  mortality,"  the  hackneyed 
rhymes  and  tender  words  are  touching  from  their 
very  simplicity  and  the  loneliness  which  surrounds 
them,  and  for  their  calm  repetition,  on  stone  after 
stone,  of  an  undying  faith  in  a  future  life. 

One  cannot  help  being  impressed,  when  studying 
the  almanacs,  diaries,  and  letters  of  the  time,  with 
the  strange  exaltation  of  spirit  with  which  the  New 
England  Puritan  regai'ded  death.  To  him  thoughts 
of  mortality  were  indeed  cordial  to  the  soul.  Death 
was  the  event,  the  condition,  which  brought  him 
near  to  God  and  that  unknown  world,  that  "life 
elysian"  of  which  he  constantly  spoke,  dreamed 
and  thought ;  and  he  rejoiced  mightily  in  that  close 
approach,  in  that  sense  of  touch  with  the  spiritual 
world.  "With  unaffected  cheerfulness  he  yielded 
himself  to  his  own  fate,  with  unforced  resignation 
he  bore  the  loss  of  dearly  loved  ones,  and  with 
eagerness  and  almost  affection  he  regarded  all  the 
gloomy  attributes  and  surroundings  of  death.  Sew- 
all  could  find  in  a  visit  to  his  family  tomb,  and 
in  the  heart-rending  sight  of  the  coffins  therein,  an 
"  awfuU  yet    pleasing    Treat ; "   while    Mr.   Joseph 


FUNERAL  AND   BURIAL   CUSTOMS  387 

Eliot  said  "  that  the  two  days  wherein  he  buried 
his  wife  and  son  were  the  best  he  ever  had  in  the 
world."  The  accounts  of  the  wondrous  and  almost 
inspired  calm  which  settled  on  those  afflicted  hearts, 
bearing  steadfastly  the  Christian  belief  as  taught 
by  the  Puritan  church,  make  us  long  for  the  simplic- 
ity of  faith,  and  the  certainty  of  heaven  and  happy 
reunion  with  loved  ones  which  they  felt  so  trium- 
phantly, so  gloriously. 


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